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? What is the reason does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only limited answers. We know that behavioral, تحاميل مهبلية (glorynote.com) biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; However, we’re not sure how much the influence of each of these factors is.
In spite of the amount, we can say that at least a portion of the reason women live longer than men do today however not as previously, has to relate to the fact that some key non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? 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. It is clear that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in all countries can expect to live longer than her brothers.
This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women exists everywhere, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.
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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let’s see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The chart below shows men and women’s life expectancies at the birth in the US between 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they were 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy was extremely small but it has risen significantly over time.
If you select the option “Change country by country’ in the chart, you can confirm that the two points also apply to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.