Why do men die earlier? Scientists reveal the reason behind women's longer lifespan
In a phenomenon that has long puzzled scientists, it appears that women live longer than men, both in our world and even among animals.
Recent research has revealed that men die on average 5.4 years earlier than women worldwide, and although the numbers vary from country to country, this gap remains consistent across cultures and regions.
In the United States, for example, the gap is 5.8 years in favor of women, where multiple factors such as unintentional injuries, diabetes, suicide, homicide, and heart diseases contribute to men's earlier deaths compared to women.
However, the study published on October 1, 2025, took a new approach to understanding this mystery, as researchers looked at the issue from an evolutionary perspective by analyzing data related to the average lifespan of 528 species of mammals and 648 species of birds, whether in the wild or in zoos.
Scientists found that males, like humans, often die before females.
In 72% of mammal species, females lived longer, while in only 5% was the gap in favor of males, and in the remaining species, there were no clear differences.
The age gap between male and female mammals was about 12% of lifespan, which is a significant percentage!
As with humans, chimpanzees and gorillas showed similar gaps in death ages favoring females, confirming that male deaths at a younger age are a general rule in nature, not an exception specific to humans.
The research points to two important factors explaining this gap:
The first is the size difference between the sexes, where the age gap is larger in species where males are much larger than females.
The second is the care that females provide to their offspring, which drives mothers to avoid risks more in order to protect their lineage, thus enhancing their chances of surviving longer.
This study opens a new window for understanding gender differences from a biological and evolutionary perspective, providing us with keys to understand the mystery of life and longevity between genders in both humans and animals.
