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 more than men do today, and why have these advantages gotten bigger in the past? The evidence isn’t conclusive and we have only some answers. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables which all play a part in women who live longer than men, we do not know how much each one contributes.
In spite of the amount, we can say that a large portion of the reason why women live longer than men do today however not as previously, has to be due to the fact that certain important non-biological aspects have changed. These are the factors that are changing. Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others 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 above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in all countries can be expected to live for longer than her younger brother.
This chart is interesting in that it shows that, while the advantage for Beauval.co.uk/index.php/User:DelorisBernacchi women exists in all countries, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women have a longer life span than men. In Bhutan the difference is just half each year.
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The female advantage in life expectancy was much lower in developed countries that it is today.
Let’s now look at how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The following chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two distinct points stand out.
There is an upward trend. Men and women in the US are living much, much longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
The gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was once tiny It has significantly increased in the past.
By selecting ‘Change Country’ on the chart, you can confirm that the two points are applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.
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