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 does this benefit increase in the past? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we have only partial solutions. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological, and environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than males, Www.jclesq.com/__media__/js/netsoltrademark.php?d=glorynote.com (Read Far more) it isn’t clear how much each one contributes.
We know that women are living longer than men, regardless of their weight. However this isn’t due to the fact that certain non-biological aspects have changed. What are these new factors? 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 parity line , this means in all countries baby girls can expect to live for longer than a new boy.1
The chart below shows that although women have an advantage throughout the world, the differences between countries can be significant. In Russia women live for 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.
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In rich countries the women’s advantage in longevity was smaller
Let’s take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female lifespans at birth in the US between 1790 and 2014. Two things stand out.
First, there is an upward trend. Women and men living in America are living longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
And second, there is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in terms of life expectancy used to be very modest however, it has increased significantly during the last century.
You can verify that these are applicable to other countries with data by selecting the “Change country” option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.