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 more than men do today and why is this difference growing in the past? There isn’t much evidence and we’re only able to provide some solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we’re not sure how much the influence to each of these variables is.
In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men today however not as previously, has to have to do with the fact that some significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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, سيرفر زيادة اشتراكات (Full Record) 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 ; it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1
This chart shows that, although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.
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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much 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 following chart shows the male and female lifespans at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the United States live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The second is that there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be very modest but it increased substantially during the last century.
You can verify that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the «Change country» option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.