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 longer than men in the present and how has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we only have some solutions. Although we know that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors that play an integral role in the longevity of women over males, we aren’t sure what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today, but not previously, is to relate to the fact that some fundamental 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. There are others that are more intricate. 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 Linkedopentafsir.com/bib/index.php/Why_Women_Are_More_Likely_To_Live_Longer_Than_Men men and women. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women’s advantage in longevity was not as great.

Let’s look at how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women’s life expectancies when they were born in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

There is an upward trend. as well as women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small however, it has increased significantly during the last century.

It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the “Change country” option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.