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 why women have a longer life span than men? Why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we have only limited answers. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than men, we don’t know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the precise weight, we know that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men today but not in the past, is to do with the fact that some key non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line ; which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live for https://glorynote.com/%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%84-%D9%85%D9%87%D8%A8%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%84/ longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that while the female advantage is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men; in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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In countries with high incomes, the women’s advantage in longevity was previously smaller.

Let’s take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was quite small It has significantly increased 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.