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 how has this advantage increased over time? There isn't much evidence and we have only partial answers. We know that behavioral, biological and environmental factors all contribute to the fact that women live longer than men; however, we do not know how strong the relative contribution of each one 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 however not as previously, has to be due to the fact that some fundamental non-biological factors have changed. What are these new factors? Some are well known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complex. 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 all countries are over the line of parity diagonally. This means that a newborn girl from every country could anticipate to live longer than her younger brother.

The chart below shows that although there is a women's advantage in all countries, the differences across countries could be significant. In Russia women live 10 years longer than men. In Bhutan the gap is just half one year.

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In the richer countries, the women's advantage in longevity used to be smaller
Let's see how the female longevity advantage has changed in the course of time. The following chart shows the male and female life expectancies at the time of birth in the US during the period 1790 to 2014. Two points stand العاب زوجية out.

There is an upward trend. Men and women 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.

The gap is growing: Although the advantage of women in life expectancy was quite small however, it has grown significantly in the past.

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