New research led by the University of Edinburgh Business School has found that menopause-aged women often find themselves within a paradox in the workplace that simultaneously challenges the ‘ideal worker’ stereotype while being caught within it. By challenging gendered and ageist organisational structures, researchers argue that space can be made for women in mid-later life to create identities through which they can be valued at work. Rather than provide women with solutions to be ‘productive’ workers, this paper provides a practical contribution for how organisations can better support this generation and future generations of mid-life women at work.
Drawing on 80 interviews with women over 50 years of age in the workplace, the findings give unique insight into how ideal worker expectations perpetuate ‘being’ menopausal at work, reinforced by life domain experiences relevant to mid-life. It was found that women tend to hide workplace disruption for reasons associated with menopause, and this can have the effect of dampening awareness and support. Results from the interviews suggest that this phenomenon leads to women relying on personal and/or internal resources for coping with this change, and that women who redefine the ideal worker stereotype by highlighting the organisational benefit of gender and age might be less vulnerable to gendered ageist workplace cultures.
Menopause remains misunderstood in many workplaces, due to structural barriers including gendered ageism and productivity pressures. Women in mid-later life, who are experiencing menopause symptoms, might experience disruption to how they work. We hope that the impact of this paper will be for women themselves to challenge ideal worker norms.Dr Belinda Steffan, lead author of the paper
"However, we are keen to champion a structural shift in how the workplace can accommodate menopause-aged women, and their specific health and well-being needs and differences. This is the way to meaningful and sustainable retention of women in mid-later life at work by addressing structural barriers as the issue and not women themselves.
Menopause symptoms may span one-third of a woman’s working life, and as such, we need to ensure this aspect of health support is mainstreamed into workplace HR policy and subsequent practices and systems. Many workplaces, including the University of Edinburgh, are devising and implementing policies on supporting those experiencing peri-menopause and post-menopause symptoms.
Workplaces who prioritise a structural review and change of workplace health and well-being supports, by focusing on how they might explicitly or implicitly communicate their version of the ‘ideal worker’, are likely to be a in position to adopt the advice in this paper.
Additional recent work by the team (Steffan, Loretto & Vickerstaff, forthcoming) highlights the difference in women’s health narrative at work between those who work in desk-based and non-desk-based jobs. So, workplace responses should be tailored to the type of work that people do, and the industry they work in.
These findings have also been shared with the UK Department for Work and Pensions as they support the new UK Government Minister for Employment in raising the profile of women’s health at work.
Read the full paper, published in the Journal of Gender, Work and Organization:
Menopause, work and mid-life: Challenging the ideal worker stereotype
Dr Belinda Steffan is our Chancellor's Fellow.