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's the main reason women have a longer life span than men? Why the advantage has grown in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only limited answers. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental factors which play a significant role in women's longevity more than men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other are more complicated. 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, اوضاع الجماع 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 that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the time of birth in the US from 1790-2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once extremely small It has significantly increased in the past.

By selecting 'Change Country from the chart, you can determine if these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.