Around the Globe, Women Outlive Men (2024)

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Around the Globe, Women Outlive Men? ›

Women tend to live longer than men in all countries — but the sex gap in life expectancy is not a constant. Women tend to live longer than men. In 2021, this difference amounted to a 5-year gap in global life expectancy: the average life expectancy was 73.8 years for women versus 68.4 years for men.

As of 2021, the latest year with federal data available, life expectancy among U.S. men was 73.5 years, compared to 79.3 years among women. Across the world, women tend to live longer than men for a variety of reasons, some biological—such as hormonal differences—and some behavioral.

The map below illustrates the gender gap in life expectancy worldwide. In only a few countries in Asia (Afghanistan, Nepal, and Papua-New Guinea) and Southern Africa (Namibia and Zimbabwe) do men outlive women.

Between 25% and 50% of men have outlived women, challenging the received wisdom that men simply don't live as long as women, say the researchers, who point out that sometimes large differences in life expectancy mask substantial overlap in lifespan between the sexes.

It's well known that women live longer than men do, but this wasn't always the case: A new study finds that differences between men and women's life expectancies began to emerge in the late 1800s. For the study, researchers analyzed information from people born between 1800 and 1935 in 13 developed countries.

The higher life expectancy of women is often attributed to the fact that women generally eat healthier and pay more attention to their health. On average, women visit the doctor earlier and more often than men, generally drink less alcohol, use less tobacco and pay more attention to a healthy diet [Griswold et al.

Sex differences in human intelligence have long been a topic of debate among researchers and scholars. It is now recognized that there are no significant sex differences in average IQ, though particular subtypes of intelligence vary somewhat between sexes.

Married men and married women live, on average, two years longer than their unmarried counterparts. One reason for this longevity benefit is the influence of marital partners on healthy behaviors. Study after study shows that married people eat better and are less likely to smoke and drink excessively.

Males lose collagen earlier and more consistently throughout life. Females tend to keep more until menopause, when they lose it at a dramatic rate. So while males slowly, gradually look older, females experience a more sudden, marked change in how old they look.

Current scientific details support the idea that, in many cases, men may fall in love more quickly than women tend to do. A survey of more than 170 college students suggested that male respondents reported both feeling love and saying “I love you” at earlier stages in their relationships than females.

Are married women happier? ›

Its 2022 survey revealed that marriage and family are strongly associated with happiness for both men and women. The GSS results showed that for women 18-55, married women were happier than unmarried women.

At the end of the study, about 16% of the men and about 34% of the women survived to the age of 90.

In 2022, the life expectancy of women at birth in the United States remained nearly unchanged at around 80.2 years. Life expectancy at birth refers to the number of years that the average newborn can expect to live, providing that mortality patterns at the time of their birth do not change thereafter.

While men are stronger when it comes to muscle strength, women are more powerful when it comes to endurance training.

Female survival advantage

For example, the analysis showed that during the Irish potato famine, women typically lived, on average, 22.4 years, while men lived, on average, 18.7 years. (In the years before the famine, the life expectancy for both sexes was about 38 years, according to the findings.)

Overall, they found that even when a significant amount of both men and women died, women still lived longer than men by six months to almost four years.

The picture is especially concerning for men, whose life expectancy is now 73.2 years, compared with women's 79.1. This 5.9 year gap is the widest between the two genders since 1996.

In 2022, the life expectancy of women at birth in the United States remained nearly unchanged at around 80.2 years. Life expectancy at birth refers to the number of years that the average newborn can expect to live, providing that mortality patterns at the time of their birth do not change thereafter.

Other Biological Factors

Women tend to be more iron deficient due to menstruation. High levels of iron encourages the formation of free radicals and an increased cancer risk. So this may also explain why women generally live longer than men.

Researchers also discovered that “shorter, smaller bodies have lower death rates and fewer diet-related chronic diseases, especially past middle age.” The lifespans of shorter people appear to be longer than their taller counterparts, the paper says.