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 are more likely to live longer than men? And why has this advantage gotten larger as time passes? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we’re left with only some answers. We know there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which play a significant role in women’s longevity more 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 their weight. However this isn’t because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. These factors 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. It is clear that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can expect to live longer than her older brother.
It is interesting to note that, while the advantage for women is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than men. In Bhutan the difference is less than half a year.
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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is today.
Let’s examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The following chart shows the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two aspects stand out.
First, there’s an upward trend. Both men as well as women in the US are living much, صبغ الشعر بالاسود much longer than they did 100 years ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The gap is increasing: While the female advantage in terms of life expectancy was extremely small but it has risen significantly over time.
It is possible to verify that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the “Change country” option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.