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? The evidence is sketchy and we have only partial solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, we do not know how much each factor contributes.
Independently of the exact amount, we can say that at a minimum, the reason why women live longer than men do today but not in the past, has to be due to the fact that several important non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and Trademarksexchange.com/author/suzettewats/ 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. We can see that all countries are above the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her brother.
The chart below shows that although there is a women’s advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries could be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.
__S.17__
__S.19__
The advantage for women in life expectancy was much lower in the richer countries that it is today.
Let’s take a look at 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 from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.
There is an upward trend. Women and men in the United States live longer than they were a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, the gap is growing: Although the female advantage in life expectancy was tiny, it has increased substantially over time.
If you select the option «Change country’ on the chart, you will be able to confirm that the two points also apply to other countries that have available data: Sweden, France and the UK.