...but are the stronger sex

WOMEN live up to 3.7 years longer than men during horrific conditions caused by famines, epidemics and slavery, a study found.

Academics at the University of Southern Denmark looked at seven historical periods when average life expectancy dipped below 20 years.

In the 1845-1849 Irish potato famine for example, life expectancy shrank from 38 years for both sexes, to 18.7 years for men and 22.4 years for women.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Odense, southern Denmark reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: ‘Even though the crises reduced the female survival advantage in life expectancy, women still survived better than men.’