Why 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. What is the reason women live much longer than men today and why has this advantage increased over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we do not know how much the influence of each factor is.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However, this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. For example, صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the global differences are significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has increased significantly over the course of the last century.

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