Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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FEMALE LIFE STAGES

Definition

This topic refers to life stages that may occur across a female's lifetime.

Population

Information was obtained for all females aged 10 years and over in the NHS and NNPAS.

Methodology

Females aged 10 years and over were asked if any of the following stages of life applied to them:

• Have never menstruated;
• Currently pregnant;
• Currently breast feeding;
• Currently experiencing menopause; and
• Post menopause.

• In most instances, women will have responded to none of the categories and were therefore coded to 'None of these apply'. These women can be considered to be at the life stage between menarche and menopause. However, at ages above that for which most women have reached menopause (between 45 to 55 years) <http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Menopause?open>, some women did not respond to any of the categories. For example, around one quarter (27.0%) of women aged 60 years and over did not respond to any of the categories, indicating that the responses 'currently experiencing menopause' and 'post menopause' were not well understood or missed by respondents.
• Data from this topic is expected to be of most use in aiding interpretation of the biomedical information from the National Health Measures Survey, as opposed to simply providing estimates of the number of women in the population at different life stages.
• As information is self reported, it is possible that some women may have been pregnant at the time of the interview, but were unaware that they were, therefore undercounting in this category may have occurred.