Why do women have longer lives 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 is the reason women live much longer than men today and why is this difference growing in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn’t sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables that play an integral role in women living longer than males, we aren’t sure how much each one contributes.

We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However it is not because of certain 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women is present everywhere, Byte-on.org.au/index.php/Why_Women_Are_More_Likely_To_Live_Longer_Than_Men country-specific differences are huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in developed countries that it is today.

We will now examine how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two areas stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

You can verify that the points you’ve listed are applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the “Change country” option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.