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 main reason women are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is limited and we're only able to provide limited answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we aren't sure how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However, this is not due to the fact that 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. There are other issues 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 men and women. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; it means that in all nations the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that while there is a female advantage across all countries, differences between countries are often significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was less in developed countries as compared to the present.
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two areas stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, صبغ الشعر بالاسود the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be tiny however, it has grown significantly over time.

It is possible to verify that 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.