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Menopause Statistics — Verified Data Hub

The menopause transition in numbers — every figure below was verified against a primary or widely recognised source and last checked on 7 September 2026.

This hub gathers the key statistics on menopause and perimenopause for journalists, researchers, and anyone who needs accurate, citable numbers. Figures come from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), The Menopause Society, the British Menopause Society, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Bone Health and International Osteoporosis Foundations. Full citations are listed in Sources at the end of the page.

How common is menopause

In 2021, women aged 50 and over made up 26% of all women and girls worldwide, up from 22% ten years earlier. (WHO)
A woman aged 60 in 2019 could expect to live, on average, another 21 years. (WHO)

At what age does menopause happen

Natural menopause usually happens between ages 45 and 55 and is confirmed after 12 consecutive months without a period. (WHO)
In the United States, the average age at natural menopause is 52. (National Institute on Aging, NIH)
In the United Kingdom, the average age at natural menopause is 51, within the normal range of 45-55. (British Menopause Society)
About 90% of women have reached menopause by age 55. (The Menopause Society)
Premature menopause, before age 40 and also called premature ovarian insufficiency, affects about 1 in 100 women under 40. (British Menopause Society)

Hot flashes and night sweats

Up to 80% of women experience hot flashes or night sweats at some point during the menopause transition. (The Menopause Society)
A hot flash episode typically lasts 1 to 5 minutes. (The Menopause Society)
Vasomotor symptoms last on average 7 to 10 years. (The Menopause Society)
In the United Kingdom, 70-80% of women have hot flashes or night sweats, and about 25% describe their symptoms as severe and debilitating. (British Menopause Society)

Sleep during the menopausal transition

In SWAN, 38% of women aged 40-55 reported difficulty sleeping, with the highest rates in late perimenopause (45.4%). (SWAN, Menopause, 2003)
The prevalence of sleep disturbance rises across the transition: 16-42% before, 39-47% during, and 35-60% after the menopausal transition. (Journal of Menopausal Medicine, 2019)

Bone health after menopause

About 1 in 2 women over age 50 will break a bone because of osteoporosis. (Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation)
Of an estimated 10 million Americans with osteoporosis, about 8 million, or 80%, are women. (Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation)
Worldwide, 1 in 3 women over age 50 will experience an osteoporotic fracture in her remaining lifetime, and nearly 75% of hip fractures occur in women. (International Osteoporosis Foundation)

Heart health after menopause

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among women in the United States: in 2021 it caused 310,661 deaths, about 1 in 5 female deaths. (CDC)
More than 60 million US women, or 44%, live with some form of heart disease. (CDC)

Menopause in the workplace

About 657 million women worldwide are aged 45-59, and around half are in the labour force during their menopausal years. (EMAS, Maturitas, 2021)

Help-seeking and underdiagnosis

In the AGATA study, 80% of postmenopausal women attending gynaecology clinics had ever received a diagnosis of vaginal atrophy. (AGATA, Climacteric, 2016)
Among women newly diagnosed with vaginal atrophy, 81.1% had never discussed their symptoms with a health-care professional. (AGATA, Climacteric, 2016)

The SWAN study in depth

SWAN has followed 3,302 women at seven US sites through the menopause transition since the mid-1990s. (SWAN, JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015)
The median total duration of frequent hot flashes or night sweats was 7.4 years, with a median persistence of 4.5 years after the final menstrual period. (SWAN, JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015)
Women whose frequent symptoms began in early perimenopause had them for a median of more than 11.8 years. (SWAN, JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015)
In SWAN, Black women had the longest median duration of frequent vasomotor symptoms: 10.1 years. (SWAN, JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015)

Methodology and reuse

Each figure was checked against its source on 7 September 2026; where a live page could not be retrieved directly, it was verified through an Internet Archive Wayback Machine snapshot of the same page. Figures are given as reported by the source, and percentages may be rounded. You are welcome to reuse these statistics with credit and a link to this page. Nothing on this page is medical advice.

Sources

Primary sources referenced above, all accessed 7 September 2026.