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's the main reason women live longer than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase over time? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only partial solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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 women. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in developed countries that it is today.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increase in the gap between men and علامات الحمل بولد women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest but it increased substantially during the last century.

You can confirm that these principles are also applicable to other countries with information by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.