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 reason why women have a longer life span than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger over time? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only limited answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we're not sure how much the influence of each of these factors is.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men today, but not in the past, is to relate to the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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 men and اوضاع الجماع women. As we can see, اوضاع الجماع all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest however, it has increased significantly during the last century.

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