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 is the reason women live longer than men and why is this difference growing in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

We know that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But, this is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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, especially for تحاميل مهبلية survivors, تحاميل مهبلية 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 every country is above the diagonal parity line , it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than men; in Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

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In wealthy countries, the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was quite small, it has increased substantially in the past.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you are able to verify that these two points also apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.