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 live longer than men in the present, and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? There isn’t much evidence and we’re left with only incomplete solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological and environmental factors that all play a role in women living longer than men, we don’t know how much each factor contributes.
We know that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. But, this is not due to the fact that certain non-biological factors have changed. What are these changing factors? 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, 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 we can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity – this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1
Interestingly, this chart shows that although the female advantage exists everywhere, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a calendar year.
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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام (glorynote.com) women was smaller
Let’s take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart shows the male and female lifespans when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two specific points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, the gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once quite small however, it has grown significantly in the past.
Using the option ‘Change country’ on the chart, you are able to verify that these two points also apply to the other countries having available information: Sweden, France and the UK.
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Why do women live longer than men? 4 years ago