Summary All-cause mortality risk persisted for 5 years after hip fractures in both men and women. There may be gender-specific differences in effect and duration of excess risk for cause-specific mortality after hip fracture. Introduction To determine all-cause and cause-specific mortality risk in the first 5 years after hip fracture in an Asian Chinese population. Methods The Singapore Chinese Health Study is a population-based cohort of 63,257 middle-aged and elderly Chinese men and women in Singapore recruited between 1993 and 1998. This cohort was followed up for hip fracture and death via linkage with nationwide hospital discharge database and death registry. As of 31 December 2008, we identified 1,166 hip fracture cases and matched five non-fracture cohort subjects by age and gender for each fracture case. Cox proportional hazards and competing risks regression models with hip fracture as a time-dependent covariate were used to determine all-cause and cause-specific mortality risk, respectively. Results Increase in all-cause mortality risk persisted till 5 years after hip fracture (adjusted hazard ratio, aHR = 1.58 95 % CI, 1.35–1.86 for females and aHR = 1.64 95 % CI, 1.30–2.06 for males). Men had higher mortality risk after hip fracture than women for deaths from stroke and cancer up to 1 year post-fracture but women with hip fracture had higher coronary artery mortality risk than men for 5 years post-fracture. Men had higher risk of death from pneumonia while women had increased risk of death from urinary tract infections. There was no difference in mortality risk by types of hip fracture surgery. Conclusions All-cause mortality risk persisted for 5 years after hip fractures in men and women. There are gender-specific differences in effect size and duration of excess mortality risk from hip fractures between specific causes of death.