Why Do Women Have Longer Lives 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 have a longer life span than men? And why does this benefit increase as time passes? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and العاب زوجية environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than males, we aren't sure how much each factor contributes.

We are aware that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However it is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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, العاب زوجية 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, all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In the richer countries, the advantage of women in longevity used to be smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be extremely small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

If you select the option "Change country from the chart, you are able to determine if these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.