Why Women Are More Likely To 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 are more likely to live longer than men? Why the advantage has grown over time? The evidence is sketchy and we have only partial solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of how much number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men do today however not as in the past, is to have to do with the fact that some significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, تحاميل مهبلية 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 we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity was not as great.
Let's look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both 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.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, you are able to check that these two points are applicable to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.