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 main reason women have a longer life span than men? What is the reason the advantage has grown as time passes? The evidence is limited and we have only incomplete answers. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; but we don’t know exactly how much the influence of each factor is.
In spite of the precise weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men do today but not previously, has to be due to the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. For زيوت تطويل الشعر 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, all countries are above the diagonal parity line – which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1
It is interesting to note that while the female advantage exists across all countries, زيوت تطويل الشعر the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.
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The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries than it is today.
Let’s see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.
The first is that there is an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once very small, it has increased substantially over time.
If you select the option “Change country from the chart, you can determine if these two points apply to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.
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Heriberto Hamel created the group
Why women are more likely to live longer than men? 4 years ago