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 longer than men? Why is this difference growing in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn’t strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental factors that all play a role in women’s longevity more than males, we aren’t sure how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the precise amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason women live longer than men however not as in the past, has to be due to the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? 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. We can see that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men; in Bhutan the gap is just half an hour.

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The female advantage in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.

Let’s examine the way that female advantages in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.

There is an upward trend. Men and Glorynote.com/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d9%86%d8%b2%d9%84/ women in the United States live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be quite small It has significantly increased over time.

When you click on the option «Change country in the chart, you will be able to verify that these two points also apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.