Why 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 longer than men in the present, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide some solutions. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors which play a significant role in women who live longer than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men in the present and not previously, is to do with the fact that a number of 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. There are others 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line - it means that in all nations a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
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 birth in the US in the years 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be quite small but it increased substantially over the course of the last century.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور and Sweden.