Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men

Everywhere in the world women live longer than men - but this was not always the case. The available data from rich countries shows that women didn't live longer than men in the 19th century. What is the reason women live longer than men in the present and why does this benefit increase over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. For example, there is evidence that in rich countries the female advantage increased in part because infectious diseases used to affect women disproportionately a century ago, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden from infectious diseases, especially for survivors, ended up raising women's longevity disproportionately.

Everywhere in the world women tend to live longer than men
The first chart below shows life expectancy at birth for men and women. We can see that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

This chart shows that, although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increase in the gap between men and زيوت تطويل الشعر women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, you can check that these two points are applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.