Writer: Shirley Weir, founding father of Menopause Chicks | Skilled Reviewer: Taylor Thurston, Naturopathic Physician & Menopause Society Licensed Practitioner
Editors: Romina Garcia de leon and Janielle Richards (Weblog Co-coordinators)
Revealed: March 8, 2025
In 2023, the Menopause Basis of Canada launched a groundbreaking report revealing the staggering $3.5 billion price of unmanaged menopause-related well being issues to the Canadian financial system.
This isn’t an summary determine; it represents actual lives and livelihoods. The report confirmed that one-in-five girls have thought of leaving their jobs attributable to debilitating signs and high quality of life. This statistic isn’t just a wake-up name for workplaces—it’s a rallying cry.
However wait! Let’s digest these numbers: 20% of girls feeling so poorly, unsupported, and defeated that they’ve severely contemplated quitting their jobs?
That’s severe.
And it ought to beg one other query: what concerning the different 80%?
These girls, although they will not be contemplating quitting, could also be struggling in silence to handle their well being whereas sustaining their skilled, household, and neighborhood obligations. The dialog about menopause within the office isn’t just about ticking the field on the newest traits in wellness; it’s about addressing a posh internet of economics, productiveness, well being and fairness—inside a company’s cultural panorama.
A Systemic Problem, Not Only a Private Drawback
By the point fluctuating hormones, sleep disruption, or different well being issues might influence a lady’s life at work (for instance: 25% of respondents from the HER-BC Examine in 2024 reported lacking work, 17% have lowered hours of labor and almost 10% report having turned down a promotion or profession development), she has seemingly already exhausted her skill to handle these challenges on her personal.
That’s as a result of, sadly, many ladies face obstacles when accessing well being care. Roughly 7 million Canadians (~1 million in British Columbia) do not need a household physician.
And people who do?
Properly, the InHerWords 2019 report highlights that over half of girls depart well being appointments feeling dismissed or upset, significantly when discussing points associated to menstruation or menopause.
For Indigenous girls and girls of color, these statistics are even larger. Add to this the truth that many ladies lack entry to a main healthcare supplier or encounter healthcare professionals who lack experience in menopause care, and the image turns into clear: it is a systemic situation, not a person one.
The headlines usually declare that girls are leaving the workforce due to “menopause.” However let’s be exact: menopause is a single day on the calendar marking the tip of ovulation. It’s not one’s reproductive standing that drives girls out of the office.
The true culprits?
- A complicated, and sometimes contradicting, panorama of girls’s well being data.
- Lack of dialog and training concerning the perimenopause-to-postmenopause transition.
- Restricted consciousness about how hormone well being intersects with different well being experiences–like iron deficiency, burnout, insomnia, despair & thyroid problems.
- Office cultures that overlook midlife girls’s well being in worker advantages.
- And in the end, the persistent failure to acknowledge (and prioritize) girls’s well being at this stage of life. Interval.
Why Ought to Employers Care?
Office leaders have a unprecedented alternative to help staff whereas additionally strengthening their organizations, the financial system and turning down the dial on persistent well being circumstances. Listed here are some key causes to take motion:
- Well being is a productiveness situation. Workers experiencing sleep deprivation, cognitive modifications, burnout, or heavy bleeding are much less productive and fewer glad at work. Addressing these points shouldn’t be solely humane but additionally good for morale, retention, and the underside line.
- Retention issues. When 1-in-5 girls think about quitting, it’s not only a private disaster; it’s a expertise disaster. Supporting midlife staff will scale back turnover, defend institutional information, and help the 4-in-5 who might by no means have the will, or the financial means to depart their jobs, but they encounter the identical obstacles when navigating well being issues.
- Fairness and inclusion. Making a office that acknowledges and helps girls (and their companions/households) at all ages and stage sends a robust message concerning the group’s dedication to well being fairness.
The place Do We Begin?
- Look at office tradition. Are ageism and sexism current in delicate or overt methods? What occurs when staff converse overtly about menopause-related challenges? Is the tradition certainly one of help or silence? Does this influence worker engagement? Development?
- Evaluation + replace advantages packages. When was the final time worker advantages had been reviewed by means of the lens of a forty five+ feminine worker? Does the plan embrace entry to menopause hormone remedy, pelvic well being physiotherapy, and psychological well being assets? Is there a transparent course of for workers to suggest or request particular protection?
- Enhance healthcare entry. How simple is it for workers to entry the healthcare they want? Contemplate partnering with native menopause consultants or telehealth suppliers to supply specialised menopause care.
- Handle burnout & insomnia. Burnout shouldn’t be good for enterprise. Evaluation organizational insurance policies on workloads and psychological well being help. Burnout (acknowledged by the WHO in 2019 as an occupational phenomenon) and poor sleep well being is just too usually mislabeled as “simply menopause” when it’s really a broader situation. Sleep problems price Canadian employers roughly $5,000 per worker per 12 months in misplaced productiveness. Half 1,000,000 Canadians miss work attributable to psychological sickness each week, which impacts the financial system by roughly $51 billion yearly.
- Present training and help. Internet hosting a office academic session on menopause is a superb begin. Worker teams are in search of evidence-based well being training and well being navigation help. For instance: The place do I am going for X? How do I do know Y is roofed? Many additionally wish to increase menopause training with periods particularly associated to matters comparable to sleep, coronary heart, mind, bone, psychological and sexual well being.
- Empower conversations. Encourage leaders and managers to normalize discussions about menopause within the office. Coaching packages will help them perceive the way to strategy these matters with empathy and respect.
A Paradigm Shift
Earlier than founding Menopause Chicks, I usually heard “menopause” and “hormones” spoken in hushed, detrimental tones. Phrases like “She’s so hormonal” or “Menopause sucks” bolstered outdated stereotypes: sizzling, drained, moody, depressing, and extra. These narratives are dangerous and dismissive. We’re the primary technology to show 50 with 5 extra many years of lively contribution to plan for.
It’s time to reframe the dialog. What if, as an alternative of viewing menopause as an finish, we noticed it as a starting? What if menopause was related to being sensible, clever, assured, and exquisite? This isn’t only a well being situation; it’s a cultural shift. I’m inspired by the societal elevation of girls of their sixth, seventh, and eighth many years. We’re seeing girls in postmenopause revered through a spike in age-at-retirement, the leisure business, and new conversations like Wiser Than Me, a podcast hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
By prioritizing girls’s midlife well being, we’re not simply bettering particular person lives—we’re strengthening households, workplaces and communities.
It’s 2025, and we’re sitting on a robust window-of-opportunity to cut back future charges of coronary heart illness, dementia, osteoporosis, kind 2 diabetes, and genitourinary syndrome of menopause (atrophy, incontinence, and pelvic organ prolapse)—whereas bettering general high quality of life and selling longevity.
The Backside Line
Workplaces that select to make use of menopause training methods will acquire a aggressive benefit, significantly for his or her employment manufacturers. Extra importantly, they are going to show a real dedication to their staff’ well-being. As a result of each lady deserves to really feel wonderful—at work and past.
