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 longer than men in the present, and why is this difference growing in the past? We only have a few clues and the evidence isn’t sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. Although we know that there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables that play an integral role in women’s longevity more than men, we don’t know how much each factor contributes.
In spite of how much weight, we know that at a minimum, the reason women live so much longer than men in the present however not as previously, has 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. Others are more complicated. For example, Www.jurisware.com/w/index.php/Why_Do_Women_Have_Longer_Lives_Than_Men (click through the following page) 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 above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from any country can anticipate to live longer than her brother.
The chart above shows that, while the advantage for women exists everywhere, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have a longer life span than males; while in Bhutan the difference is just half one year.
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In the richer countries, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let’s see how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two distinct features stand out.
There is an upward trend. Both men as well as 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.
Second, there’s an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be quite small, but it grew substantially in the past century.
You can check if these are applicable to other countries that have data by selecting the “Change country” option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.