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. Why do women live so much longer than men today and how has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're only able to provide some solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we're not sure how much the influence of each of these factors is.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women exists in all countries, cross-country differences are large. 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 advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Men and ابر التخسيس women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be very small however, it has increased significantly in the past century.

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