Last Edit: July 2026
Did you know that while Women live longer than men, they spend more of their life in poor health?
When we talk about healthcare, it’s important to understand that not everyone gets the same treatment. The gender health gap is a global issue, and the UK is no exception. Women don’t always get fair access to healthcare or have the same health outcomes as men.
Women’s health in fact is massively under researched, overlooked, and stigmatised worldwide.
Join us as we unravel some of the shocking statistics of the gender health gap. *Stats sourced from UK reports unless otherwise stated.
Key Women’s Health Statistics
- Half of women (56%) felt their pain is ignored or dismissed by healthcare professionals.
- Women, especially black women, are more likely to experience ‘pain bias’, where a health professional overlooks or ignores the level of pain they feel.
- Globally, erectile dysfunction (which affects 19% of men) is studied in research five times more often than PMS, (which affects 90% of women). This disparity is echoed in UK investment.
- It takes the average sufferer 9 years and 4 months to be diagnosed with endometriosis in the UK.
- Black women are nearly 3 times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth. Asian women are 1.3 times more likely.
- Babies born to Black women are over twice as likely to die in their first year compared with babies born to White women. (England)
- Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black Caribbean women are 24%, 15% and 8% less likely to receive an epidural during a vaginal birth compared to white women.
- The number of women who have died during pregnancy is on average 12.82 deaths per 100,000 women giving birth.
- Reviewers judged that better care might have changed the outcome in 45% of maternal deaths they examined.
- The UK’s overall maternal mortality rate is now 20% higher than in 2009-11, even though the government proposed to half deaths by 2025.
- One in ten women who worked during the menopause have left a job due to their symptoms.
- ‘Virginity testing’ in England and Wales was only made illegal in 2022 when the Department of Health and Social Care recognised it as a form of violence against women and girls.
- Healthy life expectancy has fallen to its lowest point since records began in 2011 – 13.
- The healthy-life-expectancy gap between the best and worst areas of the UK is now 15.8 years for women, the widest on record.
- Globally, women are diagnosed later than men for more than 700 diseases by four years on average.
These are just some examples of how healthcare is lacking for women and their unique health needs. If you’re not feeling the outrage, you’re not looking closely enough. It’s time to demand better, because women’s health matters.
Is Change Coming?
In 2022, the UK government published the first Women’s Health Strategy for England, aiming to reduce these inequalities within the healthcare system.
The government now admits that plan failed because it didn’t have the right tools to create real change. Since the first strategy was released, women’s health outcomes have actually gotten worse. However, In April 2026, the government published a Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England, promising faster, more fundamental reform.
Whilst any progress is welcome, it will take years to implement sustainable changes that achieve true gender health equality across the whole of the UK.
Women’s Health in Northern Ireland
While many of these stats include Northern Ireland, the challenges faced by women in the healthcare system vary.
As of 31 March 2026, 47,780 women in Northern Ireland were waiting for their first gynaecology appointment. With population accounted for, that is 2.5 times the size of similar waiting lists in England.
Northern Ireland doesn’t have a strategy of its own yet, and no release date has been announced. It is the only jurisdiction in the UK and Ireland without one.
What are we doing to help?
Here at The Women’s Organisation, we are committed to bridging the gender health gap – not just through research, but through action. This month, we brought together leaders from government, health, academia, regulation, charities and the voluntary and community sector in Belfast for our Women’s Health Advocacy & Systems Change Roundtable, to explore how we move beyond listening to women and into meaningful systems change.
Tackling the Gender Health Gap from the Workplace
We can’t talk about women’s health outcomes without highlighting that it is everyone’s interest close this gap. Women make up half of the workforce and the cost of ignoring the gender health gap issues comes at a high economic price.
Missed work due to period pain, heavy periods, endometriosis, fibroids and ovarian cysts costs the UK economy nearly £11 billion per annum. and period poverty alone costs the UK economy an estimated £3.25B a year in lost work days.
Our past project, Women’s Workplace Wellness, is dedicated to helping women’s health thrive in the workplace. We encourage SMEs in England to access our extensive resource bundle to help support their employees and colleagues.
You can gain free access here.
