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 much longer than men today and how has this advantage increased in the past? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we’re only able to provide partial answers. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral and تحاميل مهبلية environmental factors which all play a part in women’s longevity more than males, it isn’t clear how much each one contributes.
We know that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not due to the fact that certain biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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 we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1
This graph shows that even though women enjoy an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.
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The advantage women had in life expectancy was smaller in developed countries that it is today.
Let’s now look at how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand out.
The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
There is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be quite small however, it has increased significantly over the course of the last century.
You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries that have data by clicking the “Change country” option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.
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Why do women have longer lives than men? 4 years ago