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 in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only incomplete solutions. We know that biological, Glorynote.com [mouse click the following webpage] behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; however, we aren’t sure what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However this isn’t due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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 line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her older brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage exists in all countries, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half each year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women’s advantage in longevity was smaller

We will now examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once very small however, it has grown significantly in the past.

You can check if these points 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.