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 has this advantage increased in the past? We have only a small amount of evidence and the evidence isn't strong enough to make an unambiguous conclusion. We are aware that behavioral, biological and environmental factors contribute to the fact that women have longer life spans than men, but we don't know exactly what the contribution of each of these factors is.

In spite of the number of pounds, we know that at least part of the reason women live so much longer than men today but not previously, has to be due to the fact that several important 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. 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, 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 over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could be expected to live for longer than her brothers.

The chart below shows that even though women enjoy an advantage everywhere, ماذا يحدث بين الزوجين في الحمام بالصور cross-country differences could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years more than men. In Bhutan there is a difference of only half a year.

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In countries with high incomes, the female advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's examine how the female advantage in longevity has changed with time. The chart below shows male and female life expectancy at the birth in the US during the period 1790-2014. Two points stand out.

First, there's an upward trend: Men as well as women in the US live a lot, much longer than they did a century 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 to be extremely small but it increased substantially during the last century.

Using the option 'Change country' on the chart, you are able to determine if these two points apply to the other countries with available information: Sweden, France and the UK.