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 and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we’re not sure how much the influence of each factor is.
In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men in the present but not previously, is to relate to the fact that several key non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are others that are more intricate. 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 in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1
The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.
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The advantage for women in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
Let’s look at how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand اضيق وضعية للجماع out.
First, there is an upward trend: Men and women in the US live a lot, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, the gap is widening: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once quite small however, it has grown significantly with time.
By selecting ‘Change Country from the chart, you are able to determine if these two points apply to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and اضيق وضعية للجماع the UK.
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Heriberto Hamel created the group
Why do women have longer lives than men? 4 years ago