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 why does this benefit increase in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn’t sufficient to support an informed conclusion. We recognize that biological, behavioral and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women are healthier than men; However, we’re not sure how significant the impact to each of these variables is.
Independently of the exact number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live longer than men today but not previously, is to be due to the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Certain 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 implies that a baby girl from any country can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.
This graph shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half a year.
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In the richer countries, the women’s advantage in longevity was smaller
Let’s look at how the gender advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
There is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest, كيفية ممارسة العلاقة الزوجية فى الاسلام but it grew substantially during the last century.
You can check if these principles are also applicable to other countries that have information by clicking on the “Change country” option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.