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? Why does this benefit increase over time? There isn’t much evidence and we have only some solutions. Although we know that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors which all play a part in women living longer than males, we aren’t sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.
We have learned that women live longer than men, regardless of their weight. However it is not because of certain biological or non-biological factors have changed. What are these factors that have changed? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. 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 https://glorynote.com men and women. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal line of parity – this means that in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a newborn boy.1
This chart shows that, even though women enjoy an advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than males. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.
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In wealthy countries, the advantage of women in longevity was not as great.
Let’s examine how the female longevity advantage has changed over time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancies at birth in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two specific points stand out.
There is an upward trend. Men and women in America live longer than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.
And second, there is an increasing gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest but it increased substantially over the last century.
You can check if these are applicable to other countries with data by clicking the “Change country” option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.