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. Why do women live longer than men in the present and why is this difference growing in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn’t sufficient to support an absolute conclusion. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, we don’t know what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live longer than men do today but not in the past, is to do with the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. The factors changing are numerous. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, De.wiki.nsl-s.de/index.php?title=Benutzer:LIMMellisa 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 men and women. We can see that every country is above the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl in every country can expect to live longer than her older brother.

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage exists in all countries, country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than men, while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.

__S.17__

__S.19__

The advantage of women in life expectancy was much lower in rich countries than it is today.

Let’s examine how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below shows gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US from 1790-2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US live much, much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

And second, there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used be very modest but it increased substantially in the past century.

You can check if these points are also applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the “Change country” option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.