Menopause statistics: age, symptoms, duration and treatment (2026)

Key statistics.

• 52 is the average age of menopause in the United States, according to the National Institute on Aging and Cleveland Clinic.
• 51 years is the average age that women go through menopause, according to ACOG.
• 45 to 55 is the age range in which natural menopause generally occurs for women worldwide, according to the WHO.
• 26% of all women and girls globally were aged 50 and over in 2021, up from 22% ten years earlier, according to the WHO.
• 8 to 10 years before menopause is when perimenopause can begin, according to Cleveland Clinic.
• Up to 80% of women experience hot flashes or night sweats during the menopause transition, write the SWAN investigators in JAMA Internal Medicine.
• 7.4 years was the median total duration of frequent hot flashes or night sweats among 1,449 women in the SWAN study.
• 4.5 years was the median time frequent symptoms persisted after the final menstrual period in SWAN.
• 10.1 years was the median duration of frequent vasomotor symptoms for African American women in SWAN, the longest of any group.
• 30 seconds to 10 minutes is how long most hot flashes last, according to the National Institute on Aging.
• 37.3% of late perimenopausal women reported moderately to severely bothersome hot flushes, versus 8.8% of premenopausal women, in the 2025 Australian Women's Midlife Years Study.
• 45.4% of late perimenopausal women reported difficulty sleeping in the SWAN community survey of 12,603 women aged 40 to 55.
• 2 to 4 times more likely: women had a major depressive episode when perimenopausal or early postmenopausal than when premenopausal, in a SWAN analysis.
• 13.4% of 4,440 working women aged 45 to 60 reported at least one adverse work outcome from menopause symptoms in a 2023 Mayo Clinic study.
• $1.8 billion a year is the estimated US loss from workdays missed because of menopause symptoms, per the same Mayo Clinic study.
• 26.9% to 4.7%: the drop in menopausal hormone therapy use among US postmenopausal women from 1999 to 2020, in NHANES data analyzed in JAMA Health Forum.
• 3.7% of women have primary ovarian insufficiency and 12.2% have early menopause, in pooled global estimates from a 2019 meta-analysis.

Average age of menopause.

Menopause is the point 12 months after the final period. The US average sits at 51 or 52 depending on the source, and both appear in current clinical patient material, so we show both rather than pick one. Menopause before 45 is called early menopause, and at 40 or younger premature menopause, per Cleveland Clinic.

Figure	What it measures	Source
52	Average age of menopause, United States	National Institute on Aging
52	Average age of menopause, United States	Cleveland Clinic
51	Average age women go through menopause	ACOG
45 to 55	Usual age range for natural menopause, worldwide	WHO
45 to 55	Age when most women begin the menopausal transition	National Institute on Aging
3.7%	Primary ovarian insufficiency, pooled global prevalence (2019)	Golezar et al.
12.2%	Early menopause, pooled global prevalence (2019)	Golezar et al.

The population going through it is growing. The WHO reports that women aged 50 and over made up 26% of all women and girls globally in 2021, up from 22% a decade earlier, and that a woman aged 60 in 2019 could expect to live another 21 years on average.

How long menopause lasts.

Menopause itself is a single point in time, but the symptoms around it last longer than the stage names suggest. SWAN, the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation, followed 3,302 women at seven US sites from 1996 to 2013 and is the best US data on duration.

Group (SWAN)	Median total duration of frequent hot flashes or night sweats	Source
All women with frequent symptoms (1,449)	7.4 years	Avis et al., 2015
Symptoms began while premenopausal or early perimenopausal	More than 11.8 years	Avis et al., 2015
Symptoms began after menopause	3.4 years	Avis et al., 2015
African American women	10.1 years	Avis et al., 2015
Hispanic women	8.9 years	Avis et al., 2015
Non-Hispanic white women	6.5 years	Avis et al., 2015
Chinese women	5.4 years	Avis et al., 2015
Japanese women	4.8 years	Avis et al., 2015

After the final period, frequent symptoms persisted a median 4.5 years among the 881 women with an observable final period, and 9.4 years for women whose symptoms began while premenopausal or early perimenopausal. The authors advise clinicians to tell women to expect that frequent symptoms could last more than 7 years. Each episode is short: most hot flashes last between 30 seconds and 10 minutes, per the National Institute on Aging. What helps is covered in hot flashes.

Hot flashes, sleep and mood.

Vasomotor symptoms, the clinical name for hot flashes and night sweats, are the signature symptom. Sleep trouble and mood changes travel with them, and the SWAN data separate the menopause effect from simple aging.

Year	Figure	Population	Source
2025	Moderately to severely bothersome hot flushes rose from 8.8% (premenopause) to 37.3% (late perimenopause)	5,509 Australian women aged 40 to 69 classified by stage	AMY Study
2015	Up to 80% experience vasomotor symptoms during the transition	Background figure cited by SWAN	Avis et al.
2011	Major depressive episode 2 to 4 times more likely in perimenopause or early postmenopause	221 SWAN women, Pittsburgh site	Bromberger et al.
2003	Difficulty sleeping reported by 38% overall	12,603 US women aged 40 to 55	Kravitz et al.
2003	Difficulty sleeping 45.4% in late perimenopause, 47.6% after surgical menopause	Same survey, age adjusted	Kravitz et al.

Rates differ by group. In the SWAN sleep survey, difficulty sleeping ranged from 28% in Japanese women to 40% in white women, and in the multivariate analysis older age on its own was not significantly associated with difficulty sleeping, while menopausal stage was. In the depression analysis, the higher risk held after accounting for past depression, life events, hot flashes and hormone levels. Hot flashes are also not the only symptom that rises: in the same Australian study, vaginal dryness was the sexual symptom that best separated late perimenopause from premenopause. Those numbers are on our vaginal dryness statistics page.

Menopause at work.

The 2023 Mayo Clinic study is the largest US look at menopause and employment. It surveyed women aged 45 to 60 receiving primary care at Mayo Clinic sites in 2021; 4,440 reported current employment information.

Measure	Figure	Source
At least one adverse work outcome from menopause symptoms	13.4% (597 women)	Faubion et al., 2023
Missed work in the past 12 months	10.8% (480 women)	Faubion et al., 2023
Median days missed among those who missed work	3 days	Faubion et al., 2023
Odds of an adverse work outcome, highest vs lowest symptom quartile	15.6 times	Faubion et al., 2023
Estimated annual US loss from missed workdays	$1.8 billion	Faubion et al., 2023

The sample was mostly white (93.0%), married and college educated, and the response rate was 16.1%, which the authors flag; they call for larger and more diverse studies.

Hormone therapy use over time.

Hormone therapy use in the US collapsed after the Women's Health Initiative results in 2002 and has not recovered. Two NHANES analyses track it with slightly different definitions, so both appear here.

Period	Hormone therapy use	Population	Source
1999	26.9%	US postmenopausal women	Yang and Toriola, 2024
2020	4.7%	US postmenopausal women	Yang and Toriola, 2024
1999 to 2000	22.4% (oral)	US women aged 40 and older	Sprague et al., 2012
2003 to 2004	11.9% (oral)	Same	Sprague et al., 2012
2009 to 2010	4.7% (oral)	Same	Sprague et al., 2012

The drop was not even. In the 2024 analysis, use fell from 31.4% to 5.8% among non-Hispanic White women, from 13.8% to 2.6% among Hispanic women, and from 11.9% to 0.5% among non-Hispanic Black women. Meanwhile, the 2022 Menopause Society position statement calls hormone therapy the most effective treatment for vasomotor symptoms and genitourinary syndrome of menopause, with a favorable benefit to risk ratio for women younger than 60 or within 10 years of menopause onset who have no contraindications. Supplements are a different story; see best menopause supplements and black cohosh for menopause. For dryness, which hormone therapy also treats, see vaginal atrophy and lube for menopause dryness.

How we compiled these numbers.

We collected published figures from primary sources: the National Institute on Aging, ACOG, the WHO, Cleveland Clinic, The Menopause Society and peer reviewed studies indexed on PubMed, chiefly the federally funded SWAN cohort and national NHANES data. We opened every source and copied each number as published, with its year and population. We list the newest authoritative figure first and show competing figures side by side when sources disagree, as with the average age of 51 or 52. We do not combine studies into a single number or estimate figures that were not published. Surveys run by consumer brands are not used here. This page is reviewed when new data is published.

Using these statistics.

These statistics are free to cite. Please name the original source shown next to each number and link to this page, wetbetty.com/menopause-statistics, as the compiler. If you spot a newer figure or an error, tell us and we will update the page. Nothing here is medical advice; for symptoms, see a clinician, and for our full coverage, the menopause hub.