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 live longer than men? Why is this difference growing as time passes? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer lives than men, اضيق وضعية للجماع (this link) However, we're not sure what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

Independently of the exact amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men in the present, but not previously, is to be due to the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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. It is clear that all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.

It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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In wealthy countries, the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was extremely small but it has risen significantly over time.

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