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 is the reason women live longer than men? What is the reason is this difference growing in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However this isn't due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. These factors 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. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was less in developed countries than it is today.
Let's now look at how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they used to 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.

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