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's the reason why women live longer than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men, but not previously, is to have to do with the fact that certain significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these changing factors? 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. It is clear that every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl from any country can expect to live longer than her older brother.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was smaller in developed countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men and افضل كريم للشعر women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small but it increased substantially over the last century.

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