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 has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn’t strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; but we don’t know exactly how much the influence of each of these factors is.
In spite of how much amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men but not previously, has to do with the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Other are more complicated. 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 اوضاع الجماع men and women. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can be expected to live for longer than her older brother.
The chart below shows that although women have an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries are often significant. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half each year.
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The advantage women had in life expectancy was less in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let’s examine the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.
The first is that there is an upward trend. Men as well as women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be quite small but it has risen significantly with time.
You can confirm that the points you’ve listed are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the “Change country” option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.
