Drawing on a dataset covering more than 100 countries from 1970 to 2007, we estimate the impact of different types of financial crises on male and female mortality. We find that only currency crises have a direct short‐term impact on mortality rates. We stylize our reading of the key empirical evidence of this paper in the following way: of three distinct types of financial crises, it is currency crises that have a direct short‐term impact on mortality rates, and this is particularly the case for males.