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 much longer than men today and why is this difference growing over time? The evidence is limited and we only have partial answers. We know there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors that play an integral role in the longevity of women over males, it isn't clear how much each one contributes.

In spite of how much weight, we know that a large portion of the reason women live longer than men do today and not in the past, is to be due to the fact that a number of significant non-biological elements 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 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 اوضاع الجماع men and women. As we can see, all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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The advantage women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots the male and female lifespans at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Both men and women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

It is possible to verify that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.