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 longer than men in the present and why is this difference growing in the past? There isn’t much evidence and we’re only able to provide some answers. Although we know that there are biological, psychological, and environmental factors which play a significant role in women living longer than males, it isn’t clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.
We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated. For علامات الحمل بولد 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 علامات الحمل بولد women. It is clear that every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This implies that a baby girl in every country can expect to live longer than her older brother.
This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries are often significant. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.
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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries as compared to the present.
Let’s look at how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US are living much, much 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 advantage of women in life expectancy was tiny however, it has grown significantly with time.
When you click on the option “Change country’ on the chart, you can verify that these two points also apply to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.
