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 makes women live longer than men, and why have these advantages gotten bigger over time? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an absolute conclusion. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; However, we're not sure what the contribution of each one of these factors is.

We have learned that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this is not due to the fact that certain 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. Certain 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. We can see that every country is above the diagonal parity line ; this means in all countries that a baby girl can be expected to live longer than a new boy.1

This chart shows that, while there is a female advantage in all countries, the differences across countries can be substantial. In Russia, women live for 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is less that half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the female advantage in life expectancy has changed over time. The chart below illustrates the male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand Stitchipedia.com/index.php/User:SueKohler78486 out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders in the United States live longer than they used to 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 terms of life expectancy used be extremely small however it increased dramatically over the last century.

Using the option 'Change country from the chart, you are able to confirm that the two points are applicable to the other countries with available data: Sweden, France and the UK.