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 in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only some solutions. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, however, we do not know what the contribution to each of these variables is.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1

This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage across all countries, differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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In rich countries the women's advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's look at the way that female advantages in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small however it increased dramatically in the past century.

You can confirm that these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, افضل كريم للشعر and Sweden.