Why Are Women Living 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 and how does this benefit increase in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know how much the influence to each of these variables is.

Independently of the exact amount of weight, we are aware that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men however not as previously, has to relate to the fact that several fundamental non-biological factors 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 complex. 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 all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brother.

This graph shows that although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes as compared to the present.
Let's now look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increase in the gap between men and women: تحاميل مهبلية (knowing it) female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small however, it has increased significantly during the last century.

When you click on the option "Change country from the chart, check that these two points also apply to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.