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 have a longer life span than men? What is the reason does this benefit increase in the past? There is only limited evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; however, we aren’t sure how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.
In spite of the amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men today but not previously, has to be due to the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues that are more intricate. For example, زيوت تطويل الشعر 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. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.
Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is just half a year.
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The advantage women had in life expectancy was smaller in the richer countries than it is today.
Let’s see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US in the years 1790 until 2014. Two aspects stand out.
First, there’s an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, there’s an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest, but it grew substantially over the last century.
You can check if these are applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the “Change country” option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.
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Why do women have longer lives than men? 4 years ago