Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 makes women live longer than men in the present and how is this difference growing in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an unambiguous conclusion. We know there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables that play an integral role in women who live longer than men, we do not know what percentage each factor plays in.

We have learned that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this isn't due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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 , it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

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

The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small, it has increased substantially with time.

If you select the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you can confirm that the two points also apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.