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 more than men do today and why has this advantage increased over time? We only have partial evidence and the evidence isn’t strong enough to make a definitive conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that play an integral role in the longevity of women over males, it isn’t clear how much each one contributes.
In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men in the present and not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that certain significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these changing factors? 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, زيادة استماعات ساوند كلاود 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 you can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity — it means that in all nations baby girls can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1
This chart is interesting in that it shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the gap is just half one year.
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In rich countries the women’s advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let’s look at how the gender advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two areas stand out.
The first is that there is an upward trend: Men 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.
Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny It has significantly increased with time.
Using the option ‘Change country in the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points are also applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.