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 and how is this difference growing in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure how much each one contributes.

It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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. We can see that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for العاب زوجية women exists in all countries, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.

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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US from 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

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