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 makes women live longer than men and why does this benefit increase over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to support an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women’s longevity more than males, we aren’t sure how much each factor contributes.

It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. But this isn’t because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, 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. It is clear that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her younger brother.

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists in all countries, global differences are significant. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half a year.

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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries that it is today.

Let’s take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

You can verify that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the “Change country” option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, Www.freakyexhibits.net/index.php/Why_Do_Women_Live_Longer_Than_Men and Sweden.