Women live longer than men in virtually every country on Earth. In the United States, life expectancy in 2024 was 81.4 years for females and 76.5 years for males, a gap of 4.9 years. Across the 38 OECD countries, the average gap is 5.4 years, with women living to 83.0 and men to 77.6.
Current U.S. Life Expectancy Numbers
The most recent CDC data, covering 2024, puts overall U.S. life expectancy at 79.0 years. That’s an increase of 0.6 years from 2023, continuing a rebound after the dip caused by COVID-19. Male life expectancy rose faster than female in 2024, gaining 0.7 years (from 75.8 to 76.5) compared to a 0.3-year gain for women (from 81.1 to 81.4). The gap between the sexes actually shrank by 0.4 years in a single year.
These figures represent life expectancy at birth, meaning the average number of years a baby born today would live if current death rates held steady throughout their life. If you’ve already reached 65, the outlook is better than those birth numbers suggest. According to Social Security Administration actuarial tables, a 65-year-old man can expect to live another 17.5 years (to about 82.5), while a 65-year-old woman can expect another 20.1 years (to about 85.1). Surviving past the higher-risk younger years adds significantly to your projected lifespan.
How the Gap Has Changed Over Time
Women have outlived men in the U.S. for at least the last 100 years, but the size of that advantage has shifted considerably. From 1900 to 1970, the female survival advantage grew steadily. Part of this was because infant mortality declined faster for girls than boys during that period. The broader shift from infectious diseases to chronic diseases as the leading killers also favored women.
After peaking around 1970, the gap began to narrow. Men quit smoking in larger numbers and earlier than women, and male heart disease death rates dropped faster than female rates. Heart disease mortality improvements alone account for 80% of the narrowing between 1979 and 2022. Declining rates of accidents and homicides among men contributed another 27%, and falling male lung cancer deaths added 29%.
Then, starting around 2012, the gap began widening again. The primary driver this time was drug overdose deaths, which hit men far harder. A striking 84% of the resurgence in women’s life expectancy advantage between 2012 and 2022 came from deaths classified as drug-related. In 1979, “deaths of despair” (drugs, alcohol, and suicide) accounted for just 7% of the gender gap. By 2022, they accounted for 27%, equal to the contribution of cardiovascular disease.
The Gap Varies Dramatically by Country
The size of the male-female longevity gap depends heavily on where you live. Russia has one of the largest differentials in the world, with women outliving men by about 14 years. Heavy alcohol use and high rates of cardiovascular disease among Russian men are major contributors. At the other extreme, in Nigeria the gap is roughly 1 year, largely because high maternal mortality and limited healthcare access reduce the female survival advantage that wealthier nations see.
Across OECD nations, the gap clusters around 5 to 6 years, though individual countries fall on both sides of that range depending on smoking patterns, alcohol culture, workplace hazards, and access to healthcare.
Why Women Live Longer: Biology
Part of the female longevity advantage is hardwired. Estrogen appears to offer protective effects against cardiovascular disease and overall mortality during a woman’s reproductive years. Research on female singers found that those with physical traits associated with higher testosterone levels (deeper voice, taller height, greater muscle mass) had shorter lifespans than women with more estrogen-influenced traits. The hormonal protection isn’t unlimited, though. After menopause, when estrogen levels drop, women’s rates of heart disease begin to catch up with men’s.
Genetics plays a role beyond hormones. Women carry two X chromosomes, which provides a backup copy of every gene on that chromosome. If a harmful mutation exists on one X chromosome, the other can compensate. Men, with one X and one Y, have no such safety net. Telomere length, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that shorten with age, also appears to decline at different rates between the sexes and is linked to cellular aging and lifespan.
Why Women Live Longer: Behavior
Biology only tells part of the story. Behavioral differences between men and women are responsible for a large share of the gap, and these differences are especially pronounced in younger adults. Men are significantly more likely to engage in risky and aggressive behaviors: excessive drinking, drunk driving, illegal drug use, physical violence, and high tobacco consumption. These risks tend to diminish with age, which is why the mortality gap between men and women is largest among younger adults.
Cigarette smoking has historically been the single largest behavioral contributor to the sex difference in mortality. Men smoked more, started earlier, and quit later than women for most of the 20th century. The resulting lung cancer, emphysema, and cardiovascular disease drove a substantial portion of excess male deaths. As smoking rates have converged, this contribution has shrunk, but it remains significant.
Women are also more likely to engage in preventive health behaviors, including routine doctor visits and physical checkups. Men, by contrast, tend to delay seeking medical care. Interestingly, men are actually less likely to be obese and more likely to exercise than women on average, so the behavioral picture isn’t one-sided. But the risks men take, particularly around substances and violence, outweigh those fitness advantages.
Marriage has a notable protective effect, and it benefits men more than women. Married people of both sexes smoke less, drink less, use fewer drugs, and drive more carefully. But unmarried men engage in far more dangerous behaviors than unmarried women, which means the health penalty of being single falls disproportionately on men.
What Kills Men Earlier
Three categories of death account for the bulk of the male-female lifespan difference: trauma (accidents, homicides, and suicides), heart disease, and lung cancer. Together, these three explain roughly three-quarters of the excess years of life lost among men compared to women.
Trauma is the largest single contributor, responsible for about a third of the difference among white Americans, 36% among Black Americans, and over half among Latino Americans. Cardiovascular disease accounts for roughly one-quarter of the gap across all racial and ethnic groups. Lung cancer’s contribution varies: it explains about 15% of excess male deaths among white Americans but only 4% among Latino Americans, reflecting different smoking histories across populations.
What makes these numbers particularly striking is that they’re largely tied to modifiable behaviors. Tobacco use, alcohol and drug use, and violence are behind much of the gap. The biological disadvantage men face is real, but the behavioral component suggests the gap could narrow further if male risk-taking patterns continue to shift.