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 makes women live more than men do today and why has this advantage increased over time? There is only limited evidence and the evidence isn’t strong enough to make an informed conclusion. We know there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in the longevity of women over men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.
In spite of the precise amount of weight, we are aware that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men do today, but not previously, has to have to do with the fact that some important non-biological aspects have changed. These factors are changing. Some are well known and 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. As you can see, all countries are above the diagonal line of parity – this means that in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1
This chart is interesting in that it shows that the advantage of women exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half a year.
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The advantage women had in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
Let’s look at how female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancy at the time of birth in the US from 1790 until 2014. Two distinct features stand out.
First, there’s an upward trend. Men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
There is an ever-widening gap: Naturallawinstitute.com/members/starespinosa0/activity/115666/ female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be extremely small however it increased dramatically in the past century.
Using the option ‘Change country from the chart, you can check that these two points also apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.