Widow/Widower mortality rates

General Questions
#1

The following answer addresses the fact that those who have a spouse die in older age are more likely to die earlier than those who haven’t (re:http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2705/when-one-spouse-dies-does-the-surviving-spouse-tend-to-follow-soon-afterwards).

My question for this is a little more specific in the difference between Windows and Widowers. I have heard it said that, statistically speaking, an Widow will generally live longer after the death of a spouse than a Widower.

This would imply something like the following (number are made up examples): After the death of his Wife a man will live 5 years on average whereas after the death of her Husband a woman will live 7 years on average. I am curious if anyone has ever run across data like this to support or refute this?

#2

Without looking at specific statistics on widow(er)s and assuming thelist in wiki hasn’t been taken out of someone’s left elbow. Let’s pick the first country, Japan:

Men’s life expectation at birth: 79.0
Women’s: 86.1

A widow is likely to die later than a widower due to the fact that a widow is female. Nuns are also likely to die later than monks.
You have to go to the very bottom of the list to find countries where women’s life expectancy at birth isn’t at least 1y higher than for men. Even at the bottom there are countries (Sierra Leone) where women’s life expectancy at birth exceeds that of men by 3 years.