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. Why do women live so longer than men in the present and how does this benefit increase over time? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we only have partial solutions. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we’re not sure how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

In spite of the weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live longer than men, but not previously, has to relate to the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line ; which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that the advantage of women exists everywhere, Clubchienchartreuse.free.fr/modules.php?name=Your_Account&op=userinfo&username=ColbySingl the global differences are significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.

__S.17__

__S.19__

The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in rich countries as compared to the present.

Let’s now look at how the gender advantage in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two distinct features stand out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very small however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

You can verify that the points you’ve listed are applicable to other countries with data by clicking the «Change country» option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.