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 longer than men in the present and why is this difference growing over time? There isn’t much evidence and we’re only able to provide some solutions. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, but we don’t know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.
It is known that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. However it is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. 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, 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 parity line , تحاميل مهبلية this means that in all countries baby girls can expect to live longer than a new boy.1
The chart above shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.
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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let’s examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was tiny but it has risen significantly over time.
If you select the option “Change country by country’ in the chart, verify that these two points also apply to other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.
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Rafael Keats created the group
Why are women living longer than men? 4 years ago