Why Do 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 so much longer than men today and how has this advantage increased over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an absolute conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

It is known that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. For اضيق وضعية للجماع 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, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares the male and female lifespans at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

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

Second, the gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once tiny however, it has grown significantly with time.

You can check if these are applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, اضيق وضعية للجماع France, and Sweden.