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 women have a longer life span than men? And why is this difference growing in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn’t strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we do not know what the contribution to each of these variables is.
We have learned that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line , this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1
The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries could be significant. 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 the richer countries, the women’s advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let’s look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.
There is an upward trend. Men and 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.
Second, the gap is increasing: ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was quite small but it has risen significantly over time.
You can verify that these points are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the “Change country” option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.
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Why are women living longer than men? 4 years ago