Women report more stress than men, 48% to 36%, in 45-country WIN survey
Representative image: janeb13 / Pixabay
A WIN survey of 45,000 people in 45 countries, released for World Mental Health Day 2026, found 48% of women report frequent stress against 36% of men.
What Happened
Women around the world report more stress than men, and the gap has not closed in eight years, according to the 2026 mental health survey by the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research (WIN), released for World Mental Health Day on 10 October 2026. The network polled more than 45,000 people in 45 countries. It found that 48% of women said they felt stressed very often or fairly often, against 36% of men. Across everyone surveyed, 42% reported frequent stress, up from 32% in the network's 2025 survey, and money and work were the most common causes.
Key Facts
- WIN surveyed more than 45,000 people across 45 countries for its 2026 World Mental Health Day study.
- 48% of women and 36% of men said they felt stressed very often or fairly often; WIN says women have reported higher stress every year since 2018.
- Overall, 42% of respondents reported frequent stress, up from 32% a year earlier; WIN says part of the rise may reflect a change in how the question was asked.
- Debt or financial difficulty and work were each cited by 32% of all respondents, followed by family (29%) and health (28%).
- Women were more likely than men to name family, money and health as sources of stress; men were more likely to name work.
- Stress fell with age: about half of 18 to 34-year-olds reported high stress, against 24% of people over 65.
Why It Matters
The headline numbers confirm something many women already feel: stress is not shared equally. A 12-point gap between women and men, repeated year after year, suggests the cause is not one bad year or one country's economy but something built into how lives are organised. The survey's breakdown of causes points in the same direction. Men more often linked their stress to their job. Women more often named family, money and health, the areas of life where unpaid care, household budgeting and looking after other people's wellbeing tend to land.
That matters for how stress is handled. Advice that treats stress as a work problem, to be fixed with a holiday or a better manager, misses much of what women in this survey described. Stress tied to family and money does not switch off at the end of a working day. It follows a person home and is often carried alone, which is one reason the gap persists even in countries where more women are in paid work.
The age pattern is also telling. Roughly half of adults aged 18 to 34 reported frequent stress, twice the level of those over 65. For young women, that is the stage of life when careers, relationships, and often the decision to have children or care for parents all arrive at once. WIN's country data show how quickly conditions can change: in 34 of the 39 countries that were in both the 2025 and 2026 surveys, stress rose, with steep jumps in Turkey (from 40% to 70%), Ivory Coast (17% to 56%) and Ecuador (24% to 55%).
One caution applies. WIN itself says some of the overall increase from 32% to 42% may come from a change in how the mental health question was worded between the two years. The gender gap, however, has appeared in every survey since 2018, which makes it the more reliable finding.
| Group | Reported frequent stress (2026) |
|---|---|
| Women | 48% |
| Men | 36% |
| All respondents | 42% |
| Ages 18 to 34 | About 50% |
| Over 65 | 24% |
Impact
Short-term: The figures give employers, health services and families a clear signal that women's stress is broader than workplace pressure. Practical steps follow from the causes named: sharing household and care tasks more evenly, talking openly about money at home, and making time for health check-ups rather than postponing them.
Long-term: If the pattern holds, the persistent gap will feed into women's long-term health and their ability to stay in paid work. Data like this help make the case for flexible jobs, affordable care for children and older relatives, and mental health services that are easy and free to reach. In India, the government's Tele-MANAS mental health helpline is one such route to support.
Who is affected: Women in every region surveyed, particularly those aged 18 to 34; people under financial strain; and families, employers and health systems that depend on women's paid and unpaid work.
Key Takeaway
A 45-country survey found 48% of women report frequent stress against 36% of men, a gap seen every year since 2018 and driven more by family, money and health than by work alone.
Questions and Answers
Are women more stressed than men, according to the 2026 WIN survey?
Yes. In WIN's 2026 survey of more than 45,000 people in 45 countries, 48% of women said they felt stressed very often or fairly often, compared with 36% of men. WIN says women have reported higher stress than men every year since 2018.
What are the biggest causes of stress worldwide?
Debt or financial difficulty and work were each named by 32% of all respondents, followed by family at 29% and health at 28%. Among people who said they were stressed often, 44% named finances and 40% named their job.
Why do women report different causes of stress from men?
The survey found women were more likely to cite family, money and health, while men more often cited work. The survey records what people said rather than explaining why, but those are the areas where care and household responsibilities usually sit.
Did stress really rise from 32% to 42% in one year?
The reported figure rose by that much, but WIN notes that part of the increase may be due to a change in how the question was asked between 2025 and 2026, so the jump should be read with care.
Disclaimer: Prepared by the Peepals newsroom from publicly available sources with AI assistance. Information is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication and may change. Images may be representative. Not professional advice. Report an error via our contact page.
Sourced and fact-checked by the Peepals Global Editorial Team
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