An American Psychological Association article on the topic quotes an old joke about a man who goes to the doctor complaining of seeing spots. The doctor’s receptionist asks, “Have you ever seen a doctor?” He says, “No. Just the spots.”

The joke reflects an underlying social truth: that men are less likely to look after their health and see their doctor.

If you’ve ever visited a nursing home, assisted-living facility, or other seniors’ community, you may have noticed there are often more women than men.

Globally, women more frequently report and seek care for stress, depression, or anxiety. Women experience lower earnings and face many other social inequalities but outlive men in all countries—without exception—even in countries with extreme inequalities.

Reasons:

1.Risk taking
Boys and men tend to underestimate risk, suppress emotions and be more impulsive and sensation-seeking. They take more frequent and more dangerous risks.

2. Hormonal differences may make men more prone to taking risks. Also, the frontal lobes in the brains of boys and young men develop more slowly. This part of the brain is believed to be involved in judgement and evaluating consequences, and this delayed development may contribute to boys and young men engaging in more risky behaviours and activities.

3. Risky jobs
     In many higher-risk tasks—such as military combat, construction, oil rigs, saturation diving, search and rescue, policework, and firefighting—men outnumber women by a considerable margin.  

4. Dangerous sports and activities. More men than women participate in higher-risk sports and activities, especially contact sports such as rugby and boxing, or driving cars or motorcycles at high speeds, or racing. Adverse incidents may lead to long-term disability and premature death. 

5. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in men. A study in 2020 by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report on cardiovascular disease found that the prevalence of cardiovascular disease—heart, stroke, and vascular disease—was higher in men than women.

6. Biology is a factor. The female sex hormone estrogen is protective of cardiovascular disease and is partly responsible for the lower incidence of such diseases in women up until menopause.
    The male sex hormone testosterone is higher in men and is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.

7. Immune systems:
Female bodies are known to produce stronger immune responses and larger amounts of antibodies compared with male bodies. This may help them ward off diseases and live longer.

8. Medical advice and attention
Studies have shown that in general women are more health conscious and have higher awareness of physical and mental symptoms than men. They also are more likely to communicate their health problems or needs effectively. Men are generally less likely to see their doctor when they have symptoms, complete a course of treatment, do routine health checks, and skip recommended screening tests.

9. Social connections:
People with fewer or weaker social connections tend to have higher death rates, for reasons that are unclear, and this tends to be men more often than women.

10. Suicide
Men have a higher rate of suicide than women. 

11. Size: There is a rule of thumb in biology that larger-sized animals within a species tend on average to have shorter lives. Male humans are on average larger than females, so it’s feasible that this may have some effect.

12. Differences at chromosomal or genetic level. The Y chromosome tends to develop more mutations than the X chromosome, and abnormalities in X chromosomes in males are not masked by a second ‘good’ version, as they may be in females. Developmental disorders are more common in boys.

Boys and men in every age group die more often, particularly in their fifties and sixties, when the gap widens even more before narrowing again.