Post-menopause women 'happier'

Most women say their lives improve after the onset of the menopause, according to research published today showing the fiftysomethings are happier, healthier, and have better sex lives than when younger.

A survey of women aged 50-64 found 65% said they were happier than before the menopause, 66% felt more independent, and 59% were enjoying better relationships with partners and friends.

Asked about working lives, 48% claimed an improvement since the menopause, compared with 15% reporting a deterioration.

Although 19% said their sex life was less satisfactory, they were outnumbered by the 29% who said it got better.

The survey, by the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, found that women over 50 thought life was better for them than it had been for women of their age in the 1950s. Kate Fox, the centre's co-director, said she had been "taken aback"; the results ran counter to her preconception that the menopause was "something to be dreaded - an unpleasant experience in itself, leading to the even greater unpleasantness of official old age".

The results, based on an ICM poll of 200 people, indicated that the group gaining most after the menopause were those on hormone replacement therapy. Half those on HRT reported improvements in their sex lives, compared with 18% of those not taking the therapy. Two-thirds of those on HRT said ability to continue to work and pursue a career had improved since the menopause, compared with 56% of those not on HRT. And 71% on HRT reported improvements in overall health and wellbeing, compared with 48% of those not on HRT.

The report said women taking HRT were mainly middle-class, educated, and well informed. They were "a new elite, nicknamed HRHs, hormone-rich and happy," it said.

Annie Evans, women's health specialist at Bristol Royal infirmary, said that 100 years ago the average age of the menopause was 47, but the life expectancy of British women was only 49. "Now women become menopausal at just over 50 but life expectancy is nearer 80, so we can expect to spend 25 or 30 years after the menopause. They need to be able to make the kind of informed choices that will help them to maximise their enjoyment of all those extra years. HRT is not for everyone; but for many women, when they've weighed up the pros and cons, they realise it can be a great life enhancer," Dr Evans said.

The survey, called the Jubilee women study, asked women over 50 to compare their lives with those of women their age 50 years ago.

Three-quarters said their health was better and that they had more fun, while 93% said they had more independence; all felt they had more choice in everything from work to leisure pursuits.

But they were concerned about increasing social pressure to maintain a youthful appearance, balancing home and work, and loss of independence in old age.

The study was commissioned by HRT Aware, an organisation providing advice on the therapy.