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 why has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we have only some solutions. We are aware that behavioral, Saastrannual2017.com/__media__/js/netsoltrademark.php?d=glorynote.com%2F%25D8%25A7%25D9%2581%25D8%25B6%25D9%2584-%25D8%25B4%25D8%25A7%25D9%2585%25D8%25A8%25D9%2588-%25D9%2588%25D8%25A8%25D9%2584%25D8%25B3%25D9%2585-%25D8%25A8%25D8%25B9%25D8%25AF-%25D8%25A7%25D9%2584%25D8%25A8%25D8%25B1%25D9%2588%25D8%25AA%25D9%258A%25D9%2586%2F biological and environmental factors contribute to 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 precise weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men do today, but not in the past, has to do with the fact that a number of fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal parity line , this means that in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.

Let’s look at how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

First, 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.

Second, there’s a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small but it increased substantially during the last century.

Using the option ‘Change country in the chart, you will be able to determine if these two points are applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.