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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 is the reason women live longer than men, and why has this advantage increased in the past? There isn't much evidence and we're left with only incomplete solutions. We know that biological, behavioral and environmental factors all play a role in the fact that women live longer than men; however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution to each of these variables is.

We are aware that women live longer than males, regardless of weight. However this isn't because of certain non-biological aspects have changed. These variables are evolving. 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, صبغ الشعر بالاسود every country is above the diagonal parity line - which means that in every country a newborn girl can expect to live longer than a newborn boy.1

The chart above shows that although the female advantage is present everywhere, cross-country differences are large. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the difference is less that half a year.

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In rich countries the female advantage in longevity was previously smaller.
Let's now look at the way that female advantages in longevity has changed with time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancy at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two distinct points stand out.

First, there is an upward trend. Both genders living in America are living longer than they did a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

There is an ever-widening gap: female advantage in life expectancy used to be extremely small however, it has increased significantly over the last century.

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