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 live longer than men? And how has this advantage gotten larger over time? There isn’t much evidence and we have only partial answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we’re not sure how much the influence of each factor is.
In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today and not previously, is to have to do with the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and العاب زوجية relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Some are more complex. 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 you can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , it means that in all nations the newborn girl is likely to live for longer than a new boy.1
It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the country-specific differences are huge. In Russia women are 10 years older than men; in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.
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The advantage of women in life expectancy was smaller in countries with higher incomes that it is today.
Let’s look at how the female advantage in longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct features stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Men and women 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 increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once quite small, it has increased substantially over time.
By selecting ‘Change Country by country’ in the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points are applicable to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.