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. What makes women live longer than men and why is this difference growing in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, However, we're not sure how strong the relative contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men in the present however not as in the past, is to do with the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 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 line of parity - which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in the richer countries than it is now.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

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