The difference in life expectancy between males and females in Russia is unprecedently high compared with developed countries.

Objective: This paper was design to estimate the aggregate level effect of binge drinking on the gender gap in life expectancy in Russian.

Method: Trends in male fatal alcohol poisoning rate (as a proxy for binge drinking) and gender gap in life expectancy from 1965 to 2015 were analyzed employing a distributed lags analysis in order to asses bivariate relationship between the two time series.

Results: The results of the time series analysis suggest a positive relation between fatal alcohol poisonings and gender gap in life expectancy (r=0.85; SE=0.14).

Conclusions: The outcomes of this study provide indirect support for the hypothesis that binge drinking is a major contributor to the high gender gap in life expectancy and its dramatic fluctuations in Russia during the last few decades.