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? And how is this difference growing as time passes? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we’re only able to provide incomplete solutions. We know there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women who live longer than men, we don’t know how much each one contributes.
It is known that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 اوضاع الجماع 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. As we can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity – this means that in all countries the newborn girl is likely to live for 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 difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of less than half a calendar year.
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In the richer countries, the longevity advantage for women was not as great.
Let’s take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the men and women’s life expectancies at the time of birth in the US between 1790-2014. Two points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
There is a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.
It is possible to verify that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the «Change country» option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.