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 is the reason women live much longer than men today and how does this benefit increase in the past? There isn't much evidence and we have only partial solutions. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological and environmental variables that all play a role in women's longevity more than men, we don't know what percentage each factor plays in.

In spite of the weight, we know that at least part of the reason why women live longer than men today, but not in the past, is to have to do with the fact that certain 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. 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. It is clear that all countries are above the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

This chart is interesting in that it shows that, while the advantage for women exists across all countries, the difference between countries is huge. In Russia, women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of just half a year.

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The advantage for women in terms of life expectancy was lower in countries with higher incomes than it is now.
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at birth in the US during the period 1790 until 2014. Two aspects stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US are living much, much longer today than a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

The second is that there is an increase in the gap between men and women: female advantage in life expectancy used be very modest, but it grew substantially over the course of the last century.

You can confirm that these are applicable to other countries with data by selecting the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, زيادة استماعات ساوند كلاود (ttnews.ru) France, and Sweden.