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. Why do women live so much longer than men today, and why does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we’re only able to provide limited answers. Although we know that there are biological, behavioral and environmental variables that all play a role in women who live longer than men, we don’t know the extent to which each factor plays a role.
We have learned that women are living longer than men, regardless of weight. However this isn’t because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are the factors that are changing? 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, 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can anticipate to live longer than her brothers.
This chart is interesting in that it shows that although the female advantage exists in all countries, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half a year.
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In rich countries the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
We will now examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed with time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two points stand Autoelektrik.pro/why-do-women-live-longer-than-men-11/ (click to find out more) out.
First, there’s an upward trend: Men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
Second, the gap is increasing: While the female advantage in life expectancy was once quite small but it has risen significantly with time.
It is possible to verify that these principles are also applicable to other countries with data by selecting the “Change country” option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.