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 and why is this difference growing in the past? The evidence is sketchy and we have only limited answers. Although we know that there are biological, psychological and environmental variables which all play a part in women living longer than men, we do not know the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of the precise number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men do today however not as previously, has to be due to the fact that a number of important non-biological aspects have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. There are other issues 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, افضل كريم للشعر, click through the up coming page, 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 diagonal parity line ; this means that in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart is interesting in that it shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia women have an average of 10 years more than males; while in Bhutan the gap is less than half an hour.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in rich countries that it is today.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in terms of longevity has changed over time. The next chart plots the life expectancy of males and females when they were born in the US from 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is widening: While the female advantage in life expectancy used to be very small however, it has grown significantly in the past.

By selecting 'Change Country' on the chart, you are able to verify that these two points apply to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.