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 makes women live much longer than men today and how has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence is limited and we’re only able to provide incomplete solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables which play a significant role in women’s longevity more than males, it isn’t clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much amount, we can say that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men however not as in the past, is to do with the fact that certain significant non-biological elements have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line – which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This graph shows that although there is a women’s advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

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The advantage women had in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries as compared to the present.

Let’s examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The chart below shows male and علامات الحمل بولد female life expectancy at birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small however, it has increased significantly during the last century.

Using the option ‘Change country by country’ in the chart, you can check that these two points apply to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and علامات الحمل بولد the UK.