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. Why do women live more than men do today, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

It is known that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, اوضاع الجماع the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In wealthy countries, the women's advantage in longevity was not as great.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was extremely small but it has risen significantly over time.

You can verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, اوضاع الجماع France, and Sweden.