Using mortality data from 20 low-mortality countries between 1955 and 2020, the study examined how female reproductive cancers shape the survival gap between women and men. Although women had a clear overall survival advantage, those aged 35 to 60 faced higher cancer mortality than men across successive birth cohorts, driven mainly by breast and gynaecological cancers. The analysis covered 264.4 million deaths and estimated that removing female reproductive cancers would widen the female survival advantage by an average of 0.77 years. The findings highlight a persistent midlife vulnerability that offsets part of women’s longer life span and support stronger prevention, earlier detection, and better treatment access for reproductive cancers.
