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's the reason women have a longer life span than men? And why the advantage has grown in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to support an informed conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men in the present however not as previously, is to do with the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. 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 كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام 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 parity line - this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half an hour.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries that it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the men and women's life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790 until 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small however it increased dramatically during the last century.

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