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 is the reason women live more than men do today and why has this advantage increased over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to support a definitive conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren’t sure how significant the impact of each factor is.
In spite of the weight, we know that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men today however not as in the past, has to be due to the fact that certain key non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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 you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1
The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.
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In wealthy countries, اوضاع الجماع; click through the next document, the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let’s examine the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US in the years 1790 until 2014. Two specific points stand out.
There is an upward trend. Both genders in America live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small It has significantly increased over time.
It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the „Change country“ option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.