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's the main reason women have a longer life span than men? Why is this difference growing in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We know there are biological, اضيق وضعية للجماع psychological, and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure what percentage each factor plays in.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men, while in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in developed countries that it is today.
We will now examine how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two specific points stand out.

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

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest however it increased dramatically in the past century.

If you select the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you can check that these two points are applicable to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.