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. Why do women live more than men do today and how does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and ابر التخسيس we’re left with only partial answers. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which all play a part in women living longer than males, ابر التخسيس it isn’t clear how much each one contributes.
In spite of how much weight, we know that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men in the present however not as in the past, is to relate to the fact that certain fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line – it means that in all nations the newborn girl is likely to live longer than a new boy.1
This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women is present everywhere, difference between countries is huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half each year.
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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let’s examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in America have longer lives than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The second is that there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small, but it grew substantially in the past century.
You can check if the points you’ve listed are 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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Vilma Boelke created the group
Why do women live longer than men? 4 years ago