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 are more likely to live longer than men? What is the reason is this difference growing over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn't sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we don't know how much each one contributes.

In spite of how much amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason why women live so much longer than men today and not in the past, is to relate to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

This chart shows that, although there is a women's advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

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The advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was lower in developed countries that it is today.
Let's examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has grown significantly with time.

It is possible to verify that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, العاب زوجية and Sweden.