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 live more than men do today and how is this difference growing over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence is not strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women have longer lives than men, However, we’re not sure how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.
Independently of the exact weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men do today however not as previously, is to have to do with the fact that certain fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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. It is clear that every country is over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her brother.
This chart illustrates that, although women have an advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the gap is less than half a calendar year.
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In countries with high incomes, the longevity advantage for women was previously smaller.
Let’s take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Both men and Dentalteam.com/__media__/js/netsoltrademark.php?d=glorynote.com 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 second is that there is a widening gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be very small however, it has increased significantly in the past century.
If you select the option «Change country by country’ in the chart, you will be able to check that these two points are applicable to other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.