NHMRC Funding of Men's and Women's Health Research, 2013-2024
Graph of the Week
This week’s graph updates a graph published previously at The Nuzzo Letter on the amount of money (AUD) that Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) invests in men’s health, women’s health, and maternal health research. The new graph contains the latest available data of funding in 2024.
Key Points
In 2024, the NHMRC invested $14 million in men’s health research and $90.6 million in women’s health research. Thus, the NHMRC invested six times more money in women’s than men’s health research.
The disproportionate funding allocated to men’s and women’s health research observed in 2024 is consistent with funding differences observed in previous years.
The disproportionate funding does not appear to be due to funding of maternal health, because maternal health is presented by the NHMRC as a separate funding category. Even if the approximate $50 million per year from the maternal health category is subtracted from the approximate $90 million per year from the women’s health category, women’s health research still receives substantially more investment than men’s health research.
Source: National Health and Medical Research Council. Research Funding Statistics and Data. Updated April 28, 2025. Accessed June 9, 2025.
Bonus Commentary
The NHMRC is Australia’s government agency tasked with funding health and medical research. The data in the graph show that the Australian government continues to invest significantly more money into women’s than men’s health research. This funding difference is odd considering that males comprise half of the Australian population, and life expectancy among males in Australia is shorter than among females in Australia.
In June of 2025, the re-elected Labor government created the position of Special Enjoy for Men’s Health. The role and impact of this new position remains to be seen. As late as March of 2025, the Labor Party expressed little interest in men’s health. Their federal budget proposal at that time contained $793 million for women’s health and no specific funding for men’s health. An analysis of that budget has been published at The Nuzzo Letter here.
Related Content at The Nuzzo Letter
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I really wish you had a newspaper column, or at least that there was a male journo or two that was willing to write this up and quote you. It is absolutely pathetic that half of journalists are men, but not one has the balls to publish this material. It could change the whole discussion.
Just eyeballing it, seems like men are getting 10% if you total maternity and women's health vs men's health. How can that possibly be justified?