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 much longer than men today and how have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're left with only incomplete solutions. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental variables that play an integral role in women's longevity more than males, it isn't clear how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men, but not in the past, has to relate to the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain are more complicated. 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in the richer countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

There is an upward trend. and women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has grown significantly over time.

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