The two main reasons why women use medicine more often than men

Almost half of Europeans used prescribed medicines in 2014 and women were more likely than men to have used them, according to Eurostat data. This is explained by women using contraceptive pills and hormones for different purposes than contraception. Also, because the elderly take more medicine and there are more elderly women than men in the total EU population.

Latest numbers published by Eurostat and based on the European health interview survey which was conducted between 2013 and 2015 show that among European Union Member States, the proportion of people having used prescribed medicines during a two-week period ranged from more than 55 % in Luxembourg, Portugal and Belgium to less than 40 % in Bulgaria, Italy, Cyprus and Romania, as well as in Turkey. Without exception, women were more likely than men to have used prescribed medicines, with this gender difference being narrowest in Cyprus and broadest in Latvia.

In broad terms, the proportion using prescribed medicines increased with age, and peaked in the oldest age group (75 years and over). While the percentage of the population in the youngest age group having used prescribed medicines ranged between 2 % in Romania and 33 % in the Belgium, in the age group 75 and over it ranged between 68 % in Romania and 96 % in the Czech Republic.

According to the findings, the apparent gender differences, particularly in younger and middle age groups, can be partly attributed to the use of contraceptive pills and hormones for menopause. The gender difference was particularly strong in the 25–34 age group where at EU level there was more close to 12 percentage points more for women than for men. In the age group 15–24 the gender difference was almost as strong, while it weakened somewhat but remained noticeable in the next two age groups (35–44 and 45–54). The gender difference was considerably weaker in the age groups 55–64 and 65–74, and was lowest at EU level in the oldest age group.

Nearly all participating Member States in the the European health interview survey reported that a lower proportion of women having completed tertiary education used prescribed medicines than did women having completed at most upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education: the only exceptions were Greece, Malta and Portugal.

In a majority of the Member States, the pattern was the same for men, although the differences between the share of men that used prescribed medicines having completed tertiary education compared to the shares of those who completed at most upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education were smaller than in the case of women.