Women really do feel more pain than men, major global study finds

A study of more than 6 million people found women reported more pain than men across every body site studied.

A woman lying on a couch with her hand on her forehead and eyes closed, indicating exhaustion or stress. The indoor scene is brightly lit by natural light coming through the window with curtains.

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Published: October 8, 2026 at 12:57 PM

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Women report experiencing more pain than men across every part of the body studied, according to a major new global study involving more than 6 million people.

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Researchers analysed data from 118 countries collected between 1990 and 2025, covering people aged five to more than 100. The study, published in Nature Medicine, looked at how pain changes across the human lifespan and varies around the world.

The findings could add to growing concerns about the gender pain gap, with experts warning that women's pain can be dismissed, diagnosed later or undertreated.

Women reported higher levels of pain across the body

The researchers looked at self-reported pain in 11 areas of the body:

Women reported more pain than men at all 11 sites, with the difference particularly noticeable for headaches, facial pain and abdominal pain.

Pain also rises most steeply before age 55, during women’s working, caring and reproductive years.

Professor Andrew Horne, director of the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh

Back pain was the most commonly reported type, affecting around 40% of participants, while facial pain was the least common at 2%.

The study also found that pain changes considerably throughout life. For both men and women, the steepest increase happened before the age of 55, with pain peaking at or after 75.

Back, hip and knee pain continued to increase across the lifespan, while some other types of pain peaked earlier and then declined.

Women experience higher pain during key years of life

Professor Andrew Horne, director of the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh, told the Guardian that the research as a landmark study.

“Pain rises most steeply before age 55, during women’s working, caring and reproductive years. It is strong evidence that the gender pain gap is real, consistent and global. Yet women’s pain is still too often dismissed, under-researched and under-treated,” he said.

Professor Horne said tackling the difference would require women's pain to be taken seriously in clinical settings, as well as more research and better treatments.

Some types of pain peak at different ages

The researchers found that different types of pain followed different patterns across the lifespan.

Headache, abdominal and facial pain tended to peak earlier in life before declining, while musculoskeletal pain generally became more common with age.

Upper-body pain, including pain affecting the neck, shoulder and elbow, peaked around midlife before declining. Pain affecting the lower body, including the back, hips and knees, continued to increase with age.

The researchers said this suggested that a substantial amount of lifetime pain develops during working-age adulthood.

They also found that high-intensity pain peaked at around 50, while generalised pain peaked at around 70.

Experts say women's pain is still too often overlooked

The gender pain gap is real, consistent and global. Yet women’s pain is still too often dismissed, under-researched and under-treated.

Professor Andrew Horne, director of the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh

Professor Rebeccah Slater, professor of Paediatric Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, told the Guardian that the study highlighted a troubling contradiction.

“The troubling paradox is that women experience more pain, yet their pain is also more likely to be dismissed, diagnosed late or under-treated,” she said.

“This enormous study shows that the higher burden of pain in women is remarkably consistent across the body and in a remarkably diverse global population.”

The researchers also identified differences between regions. People living in areas with lower Human Development Index scores had substantially higher rates of pain later in life, including almost twice the rate of low back pain among older people.

The study found that smoking, obesity and lower household incomes together accounted for 18.3% of the global pain burden.

What the study can, and can't, tell us

The researchers stressed that there were limitations to the findings. Pain was measured in different ways across datasets, while some regions and the youngest and oldest age groups were less well represented.

The study also looked at patterns among different age groups at the same point in time, rather than following the same individuals throughout their lives to see how pain in each individual changed over time .

The researchers said using self-reported pain was important because estimates based only on diagnosed conditions can miss people who have limited access to healthcare.

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Their findings, they said, could help improve monitoring and prevention of pain and support more equitable approaches to care.

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