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? What is the reason the advantage has grown in the past? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we’re only able to provide partial solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, however, we do not know how much the influence of each factor is.
Independently of the exact weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men but not in the past, has to do with the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. What are the factors that are changing? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other 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 ابر التخسيس 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. It is clear that all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her brother.
It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.
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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was smaller
Let’s examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.
There is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was very small, it has increased substantially with time.
When you click on the option “Change country in the chart, confirm that the two points apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.
