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's the reason why women live longer than men? What is the reason is this difference growing in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we aren't sure how much the influence of each one of these factors is.

We know that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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. As you can see, اضيق وضعية للجماع all countries are above the diagonal line of parity - this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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In rich countries the longevity advantage for اضيق وضعية للجماع women used to be smaller
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, you are able to determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.