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? And why has this advantage gotten larger over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn’t sufficient to reach an unambiguous conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women’s longevity more than males, it isn’t clear what percentage each factor plays in.
Independently of the exact weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today however not as previously, افضل كريم للشعر has to be due to the fact that several key 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. Some are more complex. 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 افضل كريم للشعر women. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal line of parity – it means that in all nations that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1
Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.
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In rich countries the advantage of women in longevity was previously smaller.
Let’s look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancies when they were born in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.
There is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they used to 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, the gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in terms of life expectancy was tiny It has significantly increased over time.
It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the “Change country” option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.
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Why do women live longer than men? 4 years ago