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 reason why women are more likely to live longer than men? Why is this difference growing over time? The evidence is sketchy and we have only incomplete solutions. While we are aware that there are biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that play an integral role in women who live longer than males, we aren't sure the extent to which each factor plays a role.

In spite of how much weight, we know that at least part of the reason why women live so much longer than men do today however not as previously, has to do with the fact that a number of key non-biological factors have changed. The factors changing are numerous. 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 صبغ الشعر بالاسود 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 every country is above the diagonal line of parity - which means that in every country that a baby girl can be expected to live for longer than a new boy.1

It is interesting to note that although the female advantage is present everywhere, global differences are significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan, the difference is less that half a year.

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In wealthy countries, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the female advantage in terms of longevity has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the gender-based and female-specific life expectancy at the birth in the US in the years 1790 to 2014. Two things stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did 100 years 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 life expectancy used be quite small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

Using the option 'Change country by country' in the chart, verify that these two points are also applicable to the other countries having available data: Sweden, France and the UK.