Why Are Women Living 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 makes women live much longer than men today, and why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only partial solutions. We know there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. For ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور 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 line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries than it is now.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living 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 growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was once extremely small however, it has grown significantly over time.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.