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’s the reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? Why does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is limited and we’re left with only limited answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer life spans than men, However, we’re not sure how significant the impact of each one of these factors is.
It is known that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But, this is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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, 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from any country can be expected to live for longer than her brothers.
Interestingly, this chart shows that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.
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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in developed countries than it is now.
Let’s examine how the advantage of women in life expectancy has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US from 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, تحاميل مهبلية (glorynote.com) there’s an increase in the gap between men and تحاميل مهبلية women: female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small however it increased dramatically in the past century.
You can confirm that these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by clicking the “Change country” option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.
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Isabel Pratten created the group
Why are women living longer than men? 4 years ago