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. What's the main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? Why the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we're left with only limited answers. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that play an integral role in the longevity of women over men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

It is known that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart illustrates that, while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for ابر التخسيس women was not as great.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. and women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small It has significantly increased in the past.

You can confirm that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.