On average Canadians will live to about 80 years. Canadian women live slightly longer than men, reaching an average of 82 years. However, women will spend a far larger share of their lives managing illness, pain, and chronic disability – 24% to be exact. In late November, Femtech Canada was joined by Dr. Marie-Renée B-Lajoie, Partner at McKinsey & Company and an emergency physician to break down the data behind Canada’s gender health gap and the opportunities that lay ahead for Canada’s economy if the health gap is taken seriously.
The conditions behind the gap
Despite common assumptions, the women’s health gap is not defined by reproductive health alone. In fact, sexual and reproductive issues, while important, account for less than five percent of the disparity. The real drivers are conditions that affect women every day. Cancer remains a major contributor, particularly lung, colon, and breast cancers, where outcomes differ sharply and research still struggles to fully understand women-specific patterns. Cardiovascular disease is another core driver, shaped by symptoms that manifest differently in women and too often lead to misdiagnosis or delayed care. Brain and mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, dementia, and neurological disorders, represent a significant share as well, underscoring how persistent and wide-ranging the health gap truly is.
A system built on gaps
Dr. B-Lajoie emphasized that these disparities are not only a matter of biology. They are shaped by gaps in how women are studied, diagnosed, and treated. Women have been historically underrepresented in clinical trials, leaving major unanswered questions about how existing treatments work for them. Many interventions simply have never been evaluated through a gender-responsive lens. And as artificial intelligence begins to influence care delivery, there is a growing risk that biased data could hard-code these inequities into the next generation of decision-making tools.
Beyond data, access and adoption gaps persist across the country, particularly in communities where care is limited or where women’s symptoms are not taken seriously. In some areas, the challenge is even more fundamental: the interventions themselves are less effective for women. This is especially true in neurological health, bone and joint conditions, gynecological disease, and chronic respiratory illness, where the experience of women has too often been treated as an afterthought in the design process.
Putting women at the center of innovation
Innovation has enormous potential to close the women’s health gap, but only if women are deliberately placed at the center. Lack of innovation is the largest driver of disparities in intervention efficacy and care delivery, accounting for up to 44% of the overall gap across 21 types of interventions. Other gaps are seen in surgery and highly specialized procedures (9%), screening and surveillance (8%), and basic primary care, while pharmacological treatments, psychological therapy, and other areas make up the remainder.
The roundtable spotlighted five priority areas where targeted innovation could reshape outcomes: cancer, cardiovascular disease, brain and mental health, hormonal health and menopause, and chronic pelvic pain. Cancer research benefits from philanthropic funding, but continued participation of women in clinical trials is needed to match disease epidemiology. Cardiovascular care is improving with women-specific clinics, yet gaps remain in understanding women-specific symptoms and treatments. Mental health fundraising supports progress, but innovation in brain health has not yet reached scale. Hormonal health and menopause are very active spaces with growing private investment, though awareness and access require continued attention. Chronic pelvic pain, historically underreported, presents new opportunities as emerging diagnostic tools increase visibility.
These areas represent some of the most promising frontiers for women-centered innovation, but without intentional design, measurement, and inclusion, innovation can just as easily reinforce inequities as solve them. Across Canada, research institutions and a fast-growing Femtech ecosystem are advancing solutions. Femtech Canada now includes over 150 companies developing diagnostics, digital health tools, and medical devices.
The economic imperative
Closing the women’s health gap is not only a health priority; it is an economic necessity. Dr. B-Lajoie’s analysis shows that improving women’s health could generate at least $37 billion in additional GDP for Canada, an impact on par with the entire agriculture, fisheries, and hunting sector combined. The gains would come from women living longer and healthier lives, participating more fully in the workforce, and contributing at higher levels of productivity due to fewer disabling conditions. Provinces across the country would benefit, with outsized potential in sectors where women make up the majority of workers, including healthcare, social assistance, education, and retail.
The message is clear: when women’s health improves, Canada’s prosperity follows.
Call to action
Women in Canada are living longer, but too often they are not living better. They carry unnecessary burdens of illness, navigate pain that goes unrecognized, and manage conditions that could be prevented or treated more effectively, often within systems and innovation pipelines that were not designed with them in mind. While Canada performs well on many markers of gender equity, it ranks fifth worst among countries where women enjoy financial and professional independence in health outcomes. This gap is not inevitable; it results from choices, investments, and systems, which means it can be changed.
Dr. Marie-Renée B-Lajoie emphasized that closing the gap requires coordinated action across research, innovation, funding, employers, and healthcare systems. A growing women’s health innovation ecosystem, visible in the Femtech Canada community, shows that solutions exist, but now they need amplification through investment, research partnerships, clinical pathways, and supportive policies. With a national blueprint underway to guide efforts across five priority conditions, Canada has the expertise, institutions, and global positioning to lead the world in women’s health.
This is also a critical moment for policy momentum. The introduction of Bill S243, which seeks to establish a national framework for women’s health, signals long overdue federal attention to the issue. Supporting this legislation is one of the most immediate ways Canadians can help accelerate progress. We encourage readers to contact their MPs and senators to voice their support and ensure women’s health remains a national priority.
Closing the gap is no longer a question of possibility; it is a question of collective will. What comes next is action.