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 and how is this difference growing over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to reach an informed conclusion. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors that all play a role in the longevity of women over men, we do not know how much each one contributes.

Independently of the exact weight, we know that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men today and not in the past, is to do with the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. For example, Diasporatoday.com/why-are-women-living-longer-than-men-9/ 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 line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her older brother.

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in developed countries as compared to the present.

We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both men as well as 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.

The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was very small, it has increased substantially in the past.

You can confirm that these are applicable to other countries with data by selecting the «Change country» option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.