5 Insights About the Menopause Market from the FemAging 2020 Report (Plus What it Got Wrong)
The first-of-its kind report sheds light on underserved needs of women over 40. We discuss the most important findings here.
Despite its growing size, the subgroup of 40+ women continues to be largely ignored by businesses, tech companies, investors, and even the healthcare system. This segment is so overlooked, in fact, that we barely have any data on the demographics, needs, and behaviors of this group, which is 50M+ strong in the US alone.
Which is why the new FemAging 2020 HealthTech Report is a much-needed initiative and a step in the right direction for the industry. Launched in June, the report introduces a new sector, FemAging Tech, and sheds light on the most critical health and wellness needs of women aged 40–65. A complementary report, FemAging in the COVID-19 Era, also highlights how women’s concerns about their long-term health (especially mental health) have increased during the pandemic.
The full report is 72 pages long and we highly recommend reading it in full. It’s important, comprehensive, and well-designed (we especially love how it showcased the diversity of women over 40). It also finally sheds light on important factors about the menopause market — which to date has been shrouded in as much mystery as the health issue itself.
If you’re strapped for time, we condensed the 5 most critical findings of the report below (plus one insight it got wrong).
Insight #1: Menopause is a massive market
At Caria we’re getting bored of hearing that menopause is a niche/small market. “A billion people around the world” is not a niche in our book. The FemAging report compares the size of the US female population aged 15–39 to that aged 40–65, and they’re almost identical. Yet issues that affect women aged 15–39 (menstrual health, fertility, pregnancy, etc.) are no longer considered niches and have a lot more investment and innovation. Can we stop saying menopause is a niche now too?
Insight #2: Menopause is massively underfunded
Despite the market size being roughly equal, menopause has received a LOT less investment than fertility and parenthood. According to the report:
“Fertility and parenthood innovations have received more than $2.9 billion in investment. In contrast, solutions we assessed that are targeted toward older women — including those entering perimenopause and menopause — have received an estimated $445 million. (The majority of funding is for pharmaceutical and device innovations.)”
A few VCs are starting to vocalize their interest in this space (some examples here), but we’re still not seeing enough of their investment dollars actually go into innovations that are meeting women’s needs. (We share some thoughts on why that is here.)
Insight #3: Women in menopause have high unmet needs
One of the more concerning findings of the report was the high level of unmet needs of women who experience menopausal symptoms. 60% of women in menopause and 46% of women in perimenopause report that their symptoms interfere with their lives [note: this is lower than most other research studies have found, so there is variability in the samples]. Yet only 12% of women in menopause, and just FIVE percent of women in perimenopause are receiving care for their symptoms. The report doesn’t go into the details, but this begs the question: why is there such a massive gap in care? We think there are multiple factors at play, including the lack of access to care, lack of information about treatment options, and the lack of awareness in the medical community about treating menopause.
Insight #4: Women of color are even more underserved
As a WOC-founded company, we find this insight critical. It’s commendable that the report, co-authored by Denise Pines, sought to be inclusive of women of color, acknowledging that WOC are a generally overlooked population in innovation research, investment and development. As it turns out, they are also overlooked in menopause care. In aggregate, a total of 8% of women 45–60 are receiving care for menopause, but the proportion of women of color is even smaller: 5% African American, 4% Hispanic, and 5% Asian.
Clearly, there is a lot of work to be done to close this gap. We can start by actually uncovering and addressing the needs of WOC in menopause. For one, a higher percentage of African Americans (50%) than Caucasian women (45%) demand stress/anxiety management tools, which according to the report, only 7% of the innovations provide. At Caria we know anxiety and mental health issues are amongst the most common symptoms of menopause, and these issues disproportionately affect women of color. Caria is the first digital solution providing tailored mental and behavioral health support for women in menopause.
Insight #5: Women in menopause are very digital
Here’s some hard proof (for those who needed it) that the majority of women in menopause are tech-savvy, modern consumers that use mobile applications for almost every aspect of their life. This fact shouldn’t come as a shock, but you’d be surprised at how many people (*cough* mostly male VCs *cough*) assumed the Caria app wouldn’t scale because “women in menopause don’t use smartphones”. Unsurprisingly, the report finds that almost ¾ of women use mobile applications and almost 30% use wearables and voice tech. And Caria grew so fast that we were featured as App of the Day within months of launching in beta.
And lastly, something the report got wrong
This is a top-notch report that provides comprehensive data on many aspects of the menopause market that are still not well understood. It’s first-of-its kind and we think it’s an important milestone for the industry. But it did make a small error in the chart above: “% of FemAging Tech Products Featuring Voice Tech = 0%”
Correction: The Caria app actually does integrate voice tech to help users track symptoms of menopause seamlessly via Siri Shortcuts. If you own an iPhone, you can download the Caria app for free and talk to Siri to log your symptoms.
The Caria App allows women to track 40+ symptoms of menopause. With our Siri Shortcuts feature, you can also log symptoms with your voice and get real-time, personalized insights.
This minor correction aside, we’re honored to be recognized as one of the global top 20 innovations for women’s health in this excellent report. At Caria, we’re on a mission to serve unmet needs during menopause by giving women accessible tools to manage their physical, mental, and sexual health. Thousands of women around the world use Caria to track their health, get personalized care, and engage with a supportive community.
We’re working tirelessly at Caria to advance women’s post-reproductive healthcare, and we think the FemAging report is an important step in helping educate the industry about the importance and opportunity in serving this enormous market.
