Why do men have a significantly shorter average lifespan than women?

Heavy physical labor, engaging in dangerous jobs, and late retirement are the main reasons for men's shorter lifespan!
By 2025, the gap in average life expectancy between Chinese men and women will reach an astonishing ten years (the official average life expectancy is 79.25 years; the gender gap is usually around 5-7 years, but some mortality statistics show a larger median difference), whereas the global average gap is about five years.
In Nordic countries and other nations with good welfare systems, the gap narrows to about **two years**.
Some attribute men's shorter lifespan to smoking and drinking, but this cannot fully explain it: in developed countries, the gender lifespan gap is not large, so do they not smoke or drink?
A very interesting phenomenon: in tribes and regions that still follow primitive lifestyles, male and female lifespans are basically the same. Significant differences in lifespan only appear in industrialized countries.
Industrialized countries happen to have very systematic and comprehensive data collection:
- Male lifespan statistics show: lifelong wealth and labor → average lifespan 80 years; early retirement after making early money → 77 years; lifelong labor without wealth → 69 years; impoverished and disabled adults → 62 years.
- The average life expectancy for Chinese women is about 80.2 years.
Some statistics indicate that life expectancy is closely related to retirement age:
- Retire at 50 → expected lifespan 86 years
- Retire at 55 → 83.2 years
- Retire at 60 → 76.8 years
- Retire at 65 → 66.8 years
Men who slack off can easily live to 80, working hard until 65, and most likely pass away around 67.
In my hometown, there’s a man who never married in his life. In his youth, he indulged in drinking, gambling, and promiscuity, stealing and scamming, doing whatever felt good. The deepest impression I have of him is that he was often drunk, collapsed in the middle of the street, incontinent, leaving dark stains in the urine and dust mixture.
Other men of the same age got married and had children, living steady lives. In old age, he asked the village chief for a dance partner for protection, but the village chief just rolled his eyes and said there are only so many spots in the village, and he shouldn’t get his hopes up. The old man chuckled and left.
The next day, the village chief’s granddaughter was in kindergarten, and he followed her after school, waiting nearby. Two months later, the old man successfully received a five-guarantee pension, about 1,200 yuan a month.
A few years later, he found cooking and laundry too troublesome, so he moved into a nursing home set up for five-guarantee households in the county. He would go back to the village weekly to chat with peers, but eventually, he lost interest in returning because most of his peers had already passed away, and he was still lively and bouncing around.
He passed away last year, and the village collective took over his house. Interestingly, this house was paid for by the state.
The old man never worked a proper job in his life—truly, he never did an honest day's work.