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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 more than men do today and why is this difference growing over time? The evidence is limited and we have only partial solutions. Although we know that there are biological, psychological as well as environmental factors that all play a role in women living longer than males, it isn't clear the extent to which each factor plays a role.

We know that women are living longer than males, regardless of weight. But this is not because of certain 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. 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. We can see that every country is over the line of parity diagonally. This implies that a baby girl in every country can be expected to live for longer than her brother.

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage everywhere, cross-country differences can be significant. In Russia women are 10 years older than males; while in Bhutan the difference is less than half one year.

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The advantage for women in life expectancy was smaller in rich countries as compared to the present.
Let's examine how the advantage of women in longevity has changed over time. The next chart compares male and female life expectancy when they were born in the US during the time period between 1790 and 2014. Two points stand out.

The first is that there is an upward trend. Men and women in the US have a much longer life span longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, the gap is getting wider: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy used to be very small, زيوت تطويل الشعر it has increased substantially with time.

If you select the option "Change country' on the chart, determine if these two points are also applicable to other countries that have available information: Sweden, France and the UK.