Why Are Women Living 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? What is the reason the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we only have incomplete answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don't know exactly how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live so much longer than men, but not previously, has to be due to the fact that some significant non-biological elements 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, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام 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 كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام men and women. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in developed countries than it is now.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest but it increased substantially in the past century.

You can confirm that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.