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 women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we're left with only some answers. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all 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 are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. For example, صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries than it is now.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

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

The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once tiny, it has increased substantially with time.

If you select the option "Change country by country' in the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points are applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.