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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 are more likely to live longer than men? Why does this benefit increase over time? We only have a few clues and the evidence is not sufficient to draw an informed conclusion. While we are aware that there are behavioral, biological as well as environmental factors that all play a role in women's longevity more than men, we do not know how much each factor contributes.

In spite of the precise weight, we know that at least part of the reason women live longer than men today however not as previously, is to relate to the fact that several significant non-biological elements have changed. What are these changing factors? 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. It is clear that all countries are over the diagonal line of parity. This means that a newborn girl from every country could expect to live longer than her older brother.

Interestingly, this chart shows that while the female advantage exists across all countries, the cross-country differences are large. In Russia, women live 10 years more than males. In Bhutan the difference is only half a year.

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In rich countries the longevity advantage for women was smaller
Let's look at how female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The next chart shows male and female life expectancies at birth in the US over the period 1790-2014. Two aspects stand تخفيض ترتيب اليكسا out.

There is an upward trend. Women and men in America have longer lives than they used to a century ago. This is in line with historical increases in life expectancy everywhere in the world.

Second, there's an increasing gap: The female advantage in life expectancy used be quite small however it increased dramatically over the course of the last century.

You can confirm that these are applicable to other countries that have data by clicking on the "Change country" option in the chart. This includes the UK, France, and Sweden.