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 are more likely to live longer than men? And why does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is sketchy and we’re left with only incomplete solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental factors which all play a part in women’s longevity more than men, we do not know how much each one contributes.
We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. However this isn’t because of certain biological factors have changed. These 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal parity line , علامات الحمل بولد – sources, this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a newborn boy.1
It is interesting to note that while the female advantage exists in all countries, difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.
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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let’s see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two specific points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The gap is getting wider: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was once quite small, it has increased substantially over time.
If you select the option “Change country by country’ in the chart, you will be able to check that these two points apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.
