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 in the present, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide limited answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure what the contribution to each of these variables is.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But this isn't because of certain non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in developed countries than it is now.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live much, much longer today than a century 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 life expectancy used to be very small, but it grew substantially in the past century.

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