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 have a longer life span than men? What is the reason has this advantage gotten larger in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we’re left with only some answers. While we are aware that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women living longer than males, it isn’t clear how much each factor contributes.
Independently of the exact weight, we know that at least a portion of the reason why women live so much longer than men but not in the past, is to be due to the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. These variables are evolving. 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, Www.freakyexhibits.net/index.php/Why_Are_Women_Living_Longer_Than_Men [just click the next web page] 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 we can see, all countries are above the diagonal parity line , which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1
The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be substantial. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men, while in Bhutan the gap is less than half one year.
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The female advantage in life expectancy was less in the richer countries than it is now.
Let’s examine how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots male and female life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US live much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, the gap is increasing: While the advantage of women in life expectancy was once extremely small however, it has grown significantly over time.
By selecting ‘Change Country by country’ in the chart, confirm that the two points are also applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.