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. Why do women live much longer than men today and why has this advantage increased in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only limited solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables that play an integral role in women who live longer than males, we aren't sure how much each factor contributes.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this isn't because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. For example, علامات الحمل بولد (resource for this article) 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 line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart illustrates that, even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
We will now examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they were 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 terms of life expectancy was quite small It has significantly increased in the past.

If you select the option "Change country in the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points also apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.