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 does this benefit increase in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn't sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason women live so much longer than men today but not previously, has to have to do with the fact that several significant non-biological elements 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, 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 every country is above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries than it is today.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women's life expectancies when they were born in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, ابر التخسيس 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 principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.