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 how is this difference growing in the past? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we have only limited solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; but we don’t know exactly how significant the impact of each factor is.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men do today but not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that certain 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. Some 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. It is clear that every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that the advantage of women is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.

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In the richer countries, the women’s advantage in longevity used to be smaller

Let’s take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living 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 growing: Be34.ch/index.php?title=Why_Are_Women_Living_Longer_Than_Men – cpurent.com noted – Although the female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small, it has increased substantially over time.

You can check if these points 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.