Why 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 is the reason women live longer than men in the present and why has this advantage increased in the past? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an absolute conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental factors that play an integral role in women living longer than men, we don't know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men today and not in the past, is to be due to the fact that several key 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, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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 parity line , this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries that it is today.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small however, it has increased significantly during the last century.

By selecting 'Change Country by country' in the chart, you can determine if these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.