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Has the number of periods a woman has in her lifetime quadrupled?

A claim about the number of periods a woman has in her lifetime – and a suspicious stat on single-use face masks.

Has the number of periods a woman has, on average, in her lifetime quadrupled since the industrial revolution?

A recent article estimated that 129 billion single-use face masks are used every day around the world. It sounds wrong, but how wrong is it? And how did it get so wrong?

(Image credit: Isabel Pavia/Getty images)

Available now

9 minutes

Last on

Mon 27 Sep 2021 09:50GMT
BBC World Service

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Broadcasts

  • Sun 26 Sep 2021 13:50GMT
    BBC World Service
  • Sun 26 Sep 2021 21:50GMT
    BBC World Service except East Asia & South Asia
  • Mon 27 Sep 2021 02:50GMT
    BBC World Service South Asia & East Asia only
  • Mon 27 Sep 2021 09:50GMT
    BBC World Service

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Explore how numbers shape, and sometimes mislead us, with The Open University.

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Podcast

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    Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics used in everyday life