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 longer than men, and why has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we only have some solutions. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors that play an integral role in the longevity of women over males, we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However, this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 , this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be extremely small but it increased substantially over the last century.

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