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 main reason women have a longer life span than men? And why the advantage has grown over time? The evidence is limited and we only have limited solutions. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

We are aware that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors 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, 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live for علامات الحمل بولد (This Web-site) longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let's look at the way that female advantages in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women living in America are living longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was extremely small however, it has grown significantly over time.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.