Around the world, women consistently outlive men by several years, a pattern that has puzzled scientists for decades. Now, groundbreaking research from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has revealed that this female longevity advantage extends far beyond humans and is deeply rooted in evolutionary biology. The comprehensive study, published in Science Advances, analyzed lifespan data from over 1,176 bird and mammal species to uncover the evolutionary origins of sex differences in aging.
The international research team, led by Johanna Stärk, conducted the most comprehensive analysis of sex differences in lifespan across mammals and birds to date. Their findings provide novel insight into one of biology’s long-standing puzzles: why males and females age differently across species. The study reveals that in 72 percent of mammal species, females live longer than males by an average of 12-13 percent, while in birds, the pattern reverses with males outliving females in 68 percent of species by approximately 5 percent.
