Who Gets Massage Therapy? What the Best Data Shows

The strongest public baseline comes from the 2022 National Health Interview Survey. NCCIH reports that 10.9% of U.S. adults used massage that year, up from 4.8% in 2002. A peer-reviewed analysis of 27,651 adult respondents calculated a closely aligned past-year prevalence of 11.1%.

The small difference is a reminder that estimates depend on definitions, weighting, and rounding. Both sources support the same broad conclusion: massage use has more than doubled over two decades and now reaches a substantial minority of adults.

AMTA’s current consumer survey reports that 23% of surveyed men received a massage in the previous year, compared with 19% of women. A longitudinal NCCIH analysis, however, found that women were more likely to start massage and that women who already used it were more than twice as likely to continue at a later wave.

A commercial market estimate adds a third measure: Grand View Research attributes 61.19% of 2023 market revenue to the female segment. These results are not interchangeable. Prevalence within each gender, repeat behavior, and revenue share answer different questions and may use different samples.

The clearest divide is socioeconomic. AMTA reports that 34% of people earning at least $100,000 received a massage in the previous year, compared with 14% of those earning $50,000 or less. That is roughly a 2.4-fold difference in reported use.

The longitudinal national analysis also found that people without a bachelor’s degree were less likely to begin massage use than degree holders. Neither result proves why the gap exists, but cost, local supply, paid time, insurance, transportation, and familiarity with services are plausible access factors worth studying.

AMTA’s survey says consumers with children under 18 at home are 10% more likely to receive massage than those without children at home. It is tempting to explain this as a response to parental stress, but the survey statistic alone cannot establish motivation.

The useful takeaway is narrower: family status may help describe demand, while the reasons behind it need direct questioning. A relative increase of 10% also does not mean ten percentage points.

The 2022 NHIS analysis found higher massage use among people in the Western United States and among socioeconomically advantaged respondents. Public data can identify associations, but it cannot neatly separate availability, cultural familiarity, insurance, price, health need, and personal preference.

That is why unsupported statements such as ‘urban consumers are 2.5 times more likely’ or precise ethnic participation shares should not be repeated without a traceable table and methodology. Cultural massage traditions matter, but they should not be turned into stereotypes about individual behavior.

Public sources do not support a single definitive age profile such as ‘35–44 is 31% of all clients,’ nor the draft’s exact Gen Z growth, Fortune 500 subsidy, workplace participation, urban/rural, or ethnic-market figures. Those claims have therefore been omitted rather than presented as facts.

Market reports can still help describe spending and forecasts, but revenue share is not the same as the share of people receiving massage. For a useful demographic picture, always ask what was measured, who was surveyed, when the data were collected, and whether the result describes people, visits, or money.

These studies are useful for understanding broad U.S. patterns, but they cannot define the people who book massage in Barcelona. A local studio should not infer someone’s goals, comfort, budget, or experience from gender, age, nationality, or income. Population averages are a poor substitute for asking the individual.

A better choice starts with information you can verify: who provides the massage, which languages are available, where the appointment takes place, what the price includes, and how privacy and boundaries are handled. AMBAR publishes therapist profiles and practical directions so visitors can decide from the service itself rather than from a demographic stereotype.