Women's Health in/and Work: Menopause as an Intersectional Experience.

This paper employs an intersectional lens to explore menopausal experiences of women working in the higher education and healthcare sectors in Australia. Open-text responses from surveys across three universities and three healthcare settings were subject to a multistage qualitative data analysis. The findings explore three aspects of menopause experience that required women to contend with a constellation of aged, gendered and ableist dynamics and normative parameters of labor market participation. Reflecting on the findings, the paper articulates the challenges of menopause as issues of workplace inequality that are rendered visible through an intersectional lens. The paper holds a range of implications for how to best support women going through menopause at work. It emphasizes the need for approaches to tackle embedded and more complex modes of inequality that impact working women's menopause, and ensure that workforce policy both protects and supports menopausal women experiencing intersectional disadvantage.

Global consensus recommendations on menopause in the workplace: A European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS) position statement.

INTRODUCTION: Worldwide, there are 657 million women aged 45-59 and around half contribute to the labor force during their menopausal years. There is a diversity of experience of menopause in the workplace. It is shaped not only by menopausal symptoms and context but also by the workplace environment. It affects quality of life, engagement, performance, motivation and relations with employers. AIM: To provide recommendations for employers, managers, healthcare professionals and women to make the workplace environment more menopause supportive, and to improve women's wellbeing and their ability to remain in work. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Literature review and consensus of expert opinion. SUMMARY RECOMMENDATIONS: Workplace health and wellbeing frameworks and policies should incorporate menopausal health as part of the wider context of gender and age equality and reproductive and post-reproductive health. Workplaces should create an open, inclusive and supportive culture regarding menopause, involving, if available, occupational health professionals and human resource managers working together. Women should not be discriminated against, marginalized or dismissed because of menopausal symptoms. Health and allied health professionals should recognize that, for some women, menopausal symptoms can adversely affect the ability to work, which can lead to reduction of working hours, underemployment or unemployment, and consequently financial insecurity in later life.

No sweat: managing menopausal symptoms at work.

INTRODUCTION: Menopause usually occurs between the ages of 45 and 55, a time when women are likely to be in the paid workforce. Most women have menopausal symptoms and these may impact on daytime function and work performance. This study examines the relationship between reproductive stage, menopausal symptoms and work, and advises how employers can best support menopausal women. METHODS: An online and paper-based survey was completed in 2015-16 by 1092 women (22% response rate) aged 40 years plus employed in three hospitals in metropolitan Australia. Survey questions examined demographics, health and lifestyle variables, menopausal symptom reporting, and work-related variables. Reproductive stage was determined using modified STRAW +10 principal and descriptive criteria. RESULTS: Reproductive stage was not significantly associated with work engagement, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, work limitations and perceived supervisor support. Postmenopausal women had lower intention to leave their organizations than pre- and peri-menopausal women. While sleep problems were the most commonly reported menopausal symptom by peri-menopausal women, for postmenopausal women it was joint and muscular discomfort. Only hot flushes and vaginal dryness were significantly more frequent in peri- and post, compared to pre-menopausal women. In general, women rated their work performance as high and did not feel that menopausal symptoms impaired their work ability. Most women would appreciate greater organizational support, specifically temperature control, flexible work hours and information about menopause for employees and managers. DISCUSSION: Most women did not believe that menopausal symptoms negatively impacted on their work. Organizational changes may reduce the burden of menopausal symptoms in the workplace.

Employment conditions and work-related stressors are associated with menopausal symptom reporting among perimenopausal and postmenopausal women.

OBJECTIVE: While many women undergo menopausal transition while they are in paid employment, the effect of poor working conditions on women's experience of the menopause has received scant empirical attention. We examined associations between employment conditions, work-related stressors, and menopausal symptom reporting among perimenopausal and postmenopausal working women. METHODS: Data were drawn from an online survey conducted between 2013 and 2014 involving 476 perimenopausal and postmenopausal women working in the higher education sector in Australia. Survey questions assessed demographics; health-related variables; menopausal symptom reporting; employment status; presence of flexible working hours; presence of temperature control; job autonomy; and supervisor support. RESULTS: A forced entry multivariable regression analysis revealed that high supervisor support (ß = -0.10, P = 0.04), being employed on a full-time basis (ß = -0.11, P = 0.02), and having control over workplace temperature (ß = -0.11, P = 0.02) were independently associated with lower menopausal symptom reporting. CONCLUSIONS: These findings may help inform the development of tailored occupational health policies and programs that cater for the needs of older women as they transition through menopause in the workplace.

Menopause in the workplace: What employers should be doing.

Large numbers of women transition through menopause whilst in paid employment. Symptoms associated with menopause may cause difficulties for working women, especially if untreated, yet employers are practically silent on this potentially costly issue. This review summarises existing research on the underexplored topic of menopause in the workplace, and synthesises recommendations for employers. Longstanding scholarly interest in the relationship between employment status and symptom reporting typically (but not consistently) shows that women in paid employment (and in specific occupations) report fewer and less severe symptoms than those who are unemployed. Recent studies more systematically focused on the effects of menopausal symptoms on work are typically cross-sectional self-report surveys, with a small number of qualitative studies. Though several papers established that vasomotor (and associated) symptoms have a negative impact on women's productivity, capacity to work and work experience, this is not a uniform finding. Psychological and other somatic symptoms associated with menopause can have a relatively greater negative influence. Physical (e.g., workplace temperature and design) and psychosocial (e.g., work stress, perceptions of control/autonomy) workplace factors have been found to influence the relationship between symptoms and work. Principal recommendations for employers to best support menopausal women as part of a holistic approach to employee health and well-being include risk assessments to make suitable adjustments to the physical and psychosocial work environment, provision of information and support, and training for line managers. Limitations of prior studies, and directions for future research are presented.