Menopause in Italy: the numbers

Women in Italy in menopause and perimenopause number about 17 million: this is an estimate by Federfarma, which Fondazione Onda reports in its press release of 28 May 2025 for the presentation to the Chamber of Deputies of the policy document “Salute e benessere in menopausa”. On 30 June 2026, again at the Chamber, Maria Rosaria Campitiello, head of the Department of Prevention at the Ministry of Health, spoke of about 17 million women in menopause and of 450,000 who enter this stage of life every year.

The policy document also reports ISTAT's January 2024 population data: about 13.5 million women aged 45 to 75 live in Italy, and another 4.3 million are over 75. These are all the women of that age, not only those in menopause.

Women aged 45 to 59, the ages at which the menopause arrives, numbered 6,976,515 at 1 January 2025: 2,116,264 aged 45 to 49, 2,399,714 aged 50 to 54, 2,460,537 aged 55 to 59.

How long women live, and how many years they spend after the menopause

Life expectancy at birth for a woman in Italy was 85.6 years in 2024, according to ISTAT's final life table (the March 2025 estimate was 85.5), and the estimate for 2025 is 85.7. A woman who turns 51, the average age of menopause, has on average another 35.6 years ahead of her (35.7 in the 2025 estimate): this is our measure of the years spent in postmenopause, an approximation, because the table covers all 51-year-old women, including those who are not yet in menopause or who reached it earlier. The table applies the mortality of 2024 at every age: if survival keeps improving, as ISTAT's projections assume, the number of years will be higher for the women of today.

The projections, median scenario with a base date of 1 January 2025, take women's life expectancy at birth to 87.6 years in 2050, two years more than in 2024. ISTAT does not publish projections at age 51, so for the years after the menopause we only have today's value. For women, the years expected in good health at birth are instead 58.0 in 2025, against 60.2 for men (provisional estimate): women live 4.0 years longer than men on average, but spend 2.2 fewer of them in good health.

In Italy the menopause usually arrives between the ages of 45 and 55, according to the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), and at around 51 on average: in three Italian studies the average age at menopause ranges from 50.2 to 51.2 years. About 8–10% of women reach menopause before the age of 45, from natural or induced causes. In an Italian study of women aged at least 55 who had attended menopause clinics, 1.8% had reached it before 40. The first symptoms of premenopause appear before the menopause, for most women after the age of 40, while periods are still present.

What is the average age of menopause in Italy?

Between 50.2 and 51.2 years, in the three Italian studies we found, with data collected between 1995 and 2003. The largest, Progetto Menopausa Italia, collected between 1997 and 2003 the data of 31,834 women with spontaneous menopause who had attended menopause clinics: the average age was 51.2 years, and it did not change markedly between women born in different years. In the ICARUS study, of 4,300 women from menopause clinics, it was 50.9 years. In a 1997 survey of 16,916 postmenopausal women seen by 1,123 GPs it was 50.2 years.

The most recent figure is an Onda survey: in June 2014 it interviewed 626 women aged 45 to 65 in pharmacies, in nine regions, and those who were already in menopause had reached it at 51 on average. After 2014 we did not find a new Italian measurement. The same value, 51 years, is the average age given for the United Kingdom by the British Menopause Society in 2026.

How many women reach menopause before 45 or before 40?

About 8–10% of women reach menopause before the age of 45, whether natural or induced, according to the ISS. In Progetto Menopausa Italia, of 15,253 women aged at least 55 with spontaneous menopause, who had attended menopause clinics between 1997 and 1999, 1.8% had reached menopause before the age of 40, what the study calls premature ovarian failure, and 7.1% between 40 and 45. In that study premature ovarian failure was more common among women without children and among those who had always had irregular periods.

Is it normal to still have periods after 50?

Yes: the menopause usually arrives between the ages of 45 and 55, according to the ISS, so still having periods at 50–52 falls within the expected range. In three Italian studies the average age at menopause was between 50.2 and 51.2. We did not find a measure of how many Italian women reach menopause after 55.

What can bring the menopause forward?

• Smoking. In two Italian studies, smokers reached menopause slightly earlier: by half a year in the ICARUS study, 50.4 years against 50.9, and by a tenth of a year in Progetto Menopausa Italia, 51.1 against 51.2. In the study of menopause before the age of 45, smoking made no difference.
• Children. In the ICARUS study, women without children reached menopause at 50.0 years, those with children between 50.4 and 51.2.
• Other factors. In Progetto Menopausa Italia, a lower body mass index and an early first period were also associated with a slightly earlier menopause, but the authors stress that in absolute terms the effect of these factors is very small.
• Induced menopause. Induced menopause, for example from surgery that removes the ovaries, has to be considered separately: in Onda's 2014 survey it affected 6% of the women in menopause.

The menopause is one precise day, the last period, and it can only be recognised in hindsight: according to the ISS, we speak of menopause when there has been no period for at least 12 consecutive months. In common usage, four stages are distinguished around that day.

The cycle criteria for perimenopause are the international STRAW+10 ones, from 2012. In everyday language “premenopause” covers the first two stages together, as in our other articles; the medical term for those years is perimenopause, or the menopausal transition. To tell whether you are in premenopause, your cycle and symptoms count for more than your age.

How long does the menopause last?

The menopause itself is one day. What lasts is the transition that comes before it and, for many women, the symptoms:

• Perimenopause lasts a few months or years, differing from woman to woman, according to the ISS. In an American study from 1992 of women aged 45 to 55, followed for five years, it began at a median age of 47.5 and lasted almost 4 years.
• Hot flushes and night sweats last a median of 7.4 years, and more than 11.8 years when they already appear in premenopause or at the start of perimenopause, in an American study from 2015 of 1,449 women with hot flushes on at least 6 days every two weeks.
• Problems linked to the fall in oestrogen can last for years even after the last period, according to the ISS.
• Postmenopause lasts for the rest of life: for a woman who turns 51, ISTAT calculates another 35.6 years on average (2024 life table), an approximation.

In Italy there is no official figure on how many women use hormone therapy for the menopause. AIFA's annual reports on the use of medicines, the Rapporti OsMed, give by sex and age the class “genito-urinary system and sex hormones”, but not the individual menopausal hormone therapies: there is no usage rate. The numbers available come from surveys of different samples, and should not be compared with one another as a series over time:

• 7.6% of women aged 45 to 65 said they were taking hormone therapy, in a Censis survey of 1,028 women published in 2021.
• 5% of women in menopause with symptoms had turned to hormone therapy in 2022; it had been offered to 25% of women in menopause, and 7% had accepted it. The survey, by Elma Research for Onda, involved 315 women.
• 45% of women with severe hot flushes use no product to manage them; those who use one mostly turn to supplements, in Onda's 2024 survey.

And in other European countries? Some countries count the women on hormone therapy from prescription data. These are official figures, collected differently from the Italian surveys, and they serve as a reference rather than as a direct comparison:

• France: in 2025, 4.4% of women aged 45 to 60 collected a systemic hormone therapy reimbursed by the health system at least once, according to EPI-PHARE for the French medicines agency, ANSM.
• Sweden: the share of women over 45 who collect systemic oestrogens from the pharmacy went from 5.1% in 2021 to 8.4% in 2025, with large differences: 3.2% in the most disadvantaged areas, 12.1% in the most favoured ones, according to the Swedish health authority, Socialstyrelsen.
• Spain, Portugal and Greece: we did not find a recent national figure.

• Heart. According to ISTAT, in 2023 diseases of the circulatory system caused 33% of deaths among women in Italy, at all ages, against 23% caused by cancers. Yet in Onda's 2024 survey only 41% of women aged 45 to 65 link the menopause to a higher cardiovascular risk, and 66% feel the need for more information on the subject. 58% have talked about the menopause with a doctor; about cardiovascular issues, 41%.
• Bones. The Ministry of Health estimates that in Italy osteoporosis affects about 5 million people, and that 80% of them are postmenopausal women. Among women, 12.9% say they have it, and 45.4% of those over 74, according to 2023 ISTAT data reported by the ISS.
• Fractures. In 2023 Italian hospitals recorded 95,808 surgical admissions for femur fracture, men and women; the share of patients over 65 operated on within 48 hours rose to 59% (median value across hospitals), from 48% in 2021, according to AGENAS.
• Chronic diseases. 18.0% of women aged 45 to 54 and 32.0% of those aged 55 to 64 report having three or more chronic diseases, in the European health survey carried out by ISTAT in 2019.
• Weight. Among women aged 55–64, 31.0% are classed as overweight and 12.0% as obese, based on self-reported weight and height: these are 2023 ISTAT data processed by Osservasalute.

Three findings from other countries that do not yet have an Italian equivalent:

• Sweden: women who had greater access to menopause care lost less income from work in the first three years after the menopause, in a 2026 analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
• United States: working days lost to menopause symptoms cost $1.8 billion a year, according to a 2023 study by the Mayo Clinic.
• World: closing the women's health gap could grow the global economy by at least $1 trillion a year by 2040, in a 2024 estimate by the World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute.

We looked for data published by Italian sources from 2021 onwards: ISTAT, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, the Ministry of Health, AIFA, AGENAS, Osservasalute, Fondazione Onda, scientific societies, universities and research centres. Every number was re-read in the source listed; where we read only the abstract of a study, or a page that reports an ISTAT figure, the source listed is the one we read. We report the estimate of 17 million women as the Fondazione Onda press release cites it, which refers to Federfarma: the original Federfarma press release was not reachable. For every figure we give the year, and the funder when the source states it.

The exception is the age at menopause, which in Italy was measured by studies with data collected between 1995 and 2014. For the stages of menopause we use the 2020 page of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, the international STRAW+10 criteria and studies from other countries, labelled as such.

You can cite these numbers by giving the original source and this page: Medyca, “Menopause in Italy: the numbers”, medyca.it. If you find a more recent figure or a mistake, write to us at info@medyca.it.