Data Shows Women Outlive Men in Every Single Country

Women outlive men in every single one of the world’s 234 countries and territories, illustrating a global and persistent trend. 

This pattern holds across diverse regions, from Monaco, where females average 88.85 years compared to males’ 84.76, to Nigeria, where women reach 55.3 years compared to men’s 54.6. 

For context, life expectancy is the average number of years a person is expected to live, based on statistical data such as birth year, sex, and location. It doesn’t mean everyone dies at that age.

The data used to create the visualization above comes from the latest UN Population Division estimates. It shows the life expectancy across the world. 

• Women outlive men in every country, with differences ranging from four to eleven years and an average gap of about five to six years worldwide.
• The largest general life expectancy disparity is nearly 32 years (between Monaco, with a life expectancy of 86.73 years, and Nigeria, at 54.95 years).
• Wealthy small states and East Asian nations dominate higher life expectancy, while the bottom 25 are all Sub-Saharan African countries.