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 more than men do today and why has this advantage increased over time? The evidence isn't conclusive and we have only partial answers. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know how much each factor contributes.

We know that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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 line of parity - this means in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. 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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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once tiny but it has risen significantly over time.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, اضيق وضعية للجماع you are able to confirm that the two points also apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.