Why Are Women Living 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 so much longer than men today and why is this difference growing over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors that all play a role in women living longer than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men, but not previously, has to have to do with the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? 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 زيوت تطويل الشعر women. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

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In rich countries the longevity advantage for women used to be smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest but it increased substantially over the last century.

You can confirm that the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.