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. Why do women live more than men do today, and why has this advantage increased in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren't sure how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. 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 parity line ; which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, علامات الحمل بولد differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was very small but it has risen significantly over time.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.