Judging by the cliché of the man almost dying with a fever of 37°C and the woman taking care of home, family and work even with 39°C, one would think that the female sex generally suffers less than the male sex. According to a study published in Nature Medicinethe opposite is true: women suffer more pain than men, in particular headaches, abdominal pain and facial pain.
The discovery is the result of an analysis of data collected between 1990 and 2025, concerning over six million people from 118 different countries and aged between 5 and over 100 years. The data are self-reported, so we are talking about perceived and subjective pain, and not objectively measured. In particular, eleven areas of the body were analysed: head, face, neck or shoulders, feet or ankles, hands or wrists, elbow, chest, back, stomach or belly, knees and hips.
Gender pain gap
The results show a clear increase in pain before the age of 55 in women, in the period of life most dedicated to work, family and children. “Women’s pain, however, is too often belittled, little studied and little taken care of,” says Andrew Horne, an expert who did not participate in the study but called it “unprecedented.” According to Horne, the results represent proof that the so-called gender pain gapa term used to indicate the tendency to underestimate (and therefore treat less) women’s pain, is a real and global problem.
In general, women reported stronger pain in all eleven areas considered in the study, in particular the face (+83% compared to men), the head (+74%) and the abdomen (+60%).
Pain and age
Having pain somewhere, this is clear (even without scientific studies), is more likely as age advances: at five years old only three out of ten children reported having pain somewhere, while at 70 years old the percentage of participants rose to 70%.
Some pains, however, have a peak at a young age and then decrease as one gets older: this is the case of headaches, at most at 34 years of age, and abdominal pain, which is strongest at 23 years of age. Back, hips and knees, on the other hand, worsen with old age (and back pain is the most common pain: 4 out of 10 participants said they had suffered from it in the last month).
Rich and poor (and grieving)
Even the place where you live and the services available have an impact: the inhabitants of countries with the lowest Human Development Index – that is, the poorest and least developed ones – suffer more from back pain and, more generally, body pain over the age of 65. As far as the Old Continent is concerned, Eastern Europe suffers more than Western Europe.
The last aspect that emerges from the research is that smoking, obesity and low income together explain approximately 18% of pain globally. Another way of saying that smoking, being obese and earning little is bad for your health (nothing new under the sun, in short).
