Unlocking $400 billion: WEF report finds investing in women’s health can transform global economies by 2040  

A report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that addressing key women-specific health challenges could unlock $400 billion in global GDP annually by 2040.  

The recently published report, Blueprint to Close the Women’s Health Gap: How to Improve Lives and Economies for All, created in collaboration with the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI), emphasizes that women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health compared to men. It also outlines how focused efforts on nine key health conditions could reduce the global disease burden by 27 million disability-adjusted life years and add the equivalent of 2.5 healthy days per woman each year.  

These nine conditions are categorized into lifespan conditions, which relate to the total number of years lived (maternal hypertensive disorders, postpartum hemorrhage, ischemic heart disease, cervical cancer, and breast cancer), and health span conditions, which focus on how many of those years are lived in good health (endometriosis, menopause, migraine, and premenstrual syndrome). 

As part of this initiative, the Forum, in collaboration with MHI, introduced the Women’s Health Impact Tracking (WHIT), a publicly available tool designed to measure and address global health disparities and promote equitable, scalable solutions worldwide. By offering data-driven insights on health outcomes and economic opportunities, the platform underscores the urgent need for investment in three underfunded conditions — menopause, premenstrual syndrome, and migraine — which collectively represent a $315 billion GDP opportunity. 

“Measuring progress is essential for driving meaningful change and developing effective healthcare strategies tailored to women,” said Shyam Bishen, Head of the Centre for Health and Healthcare and member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum. “Despite the opportunity to add 2.5 additional healthy days to women’s lives, they are often overlooked due to a lack of sex-specific research — only 10% of clinical trials for ischemic heart disease and migraine include such data. The WHIT platform is a crucial tool to identify these gaps and provide actionable insights to close them.” 

“It is time to count women, study women, care for women, invest in women, and include all women,” said Lucy Pérez, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company and Co-leader of the McKinsey Health Institute. “Addressing these nine conditions can not only improve the lives of millions of women and unlock $400 billion in economic growth — it also offers a roadmap for scaling and tracking progress to close the broader women’s health gap.” 

The new report highlights alarming disparities in women’s health outcomes, primarily due to gaps in data collection, research funding, clinical practice guidelines, and healthcare delivery systems. It stresses that improving data accuracy, increasing research funding for women-specific conditions, and refining sex-based clinical guidelines could dramatically reduce these disparities. Notably, while 54% of the women’s health burden occurs in low- and middle-income countries, only 23% of clinical trials focus on these regions. 

The research identifies five key actions for stakeholders to address these imbalances and unlock the vast untapped potential of greater health equity: 

1. Count women: Invest in better data collection to expose the true burden of women’s health conditions. 
2. Study women: Fund research into women-specific health issues and sex-based differences. 
3. Care for women: Ensure clinical guidelines reflect best practices tailored to women’s unique needs. 
4. Include all women: Address disparities affecting marginalized groups to foster broader health equity. 
5. Invest in women: Mobilize funding for innovative healthcare solutions and delivery models. 

“Healthier women form the foundation of stronger families, productive workplaces, and resilient economies, yet profound gender gaps in research and scientific innovation continue to deny women access to the tools, treatments, and services they need to stay healthy,” says Anita Zaidi, Board Co-Chair of the Global Alliance for Women’s Health and President of Gender Equality at the Gates Foundation. “The Women’s Health Impact Tracking Platform fulfills a critical need by providing data that is comprehensive enough to capture the complexity of women’s lives while also simple enough to take action on.” 

The report calls for action from governments, the private sector, researchers, civil society, and communities around the world, with the WHIT platform and its data aggregation serving as a valuable resource to set agendas and allocate resources. Now is the time to take action to ensure that every woman and girl can live healthier, more productive lives.