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 live longer than men? And how does this benefit increase over time? The evidence is sketchy and we have only some answers. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; but we don't know exactly how strong the relative contribution of each one of these factors is.

We know that women live longer than men, regardless of weight. But it is not because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. What 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. As you can see, every country is above the diagonal parity line - this means in all countries a newborn girl can expect to live for longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart below shows that while there is a female advantage everywhere, cross-country differences are often significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is only half a year.

__S.17__
__S.19__
In rich countries the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's take a look at how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US between 1790 until 2014. Two areas stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Women and men in America live longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's a widening gap: The female advantage in terms of life expectancy used be very modest however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

You can check if the points you've listed are applicable to other countries with data by clicking on the "Change country" option on the chart. This includes the UK, France, and 비회원구매 Sweden.