Why Women Are More Likely To 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 how is this difference growing in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to draw a definitive conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

Independently of the exact amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason women live longer than men today however not as previously, is to relate to the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others 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 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 كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام men and women. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her older brother.

The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let's look at how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they did 100 years 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 terms of life expectancy was quite small however, it has grown significantly over time.

If you select the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you are able to verify that these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.