Another reason employees don’t want to return to the office: menopause

Nearly half of female workers between the ages of 40 and 55 in the US have contemplated looking for remote jobs so they can more easily deal with menopause symptoms, a new survey finds.

In the survey commissioned by US fertility benefits company Carrot, 47 per cent of respondents said they would consider looking for remote or hybrid work because of menopause symptoms. Nearly a third of the women surveyed said they’d think about shifting to part time from full-time work, while 22 per cent said they would consider retiring early.

Carrot surveyed 1,000 US female workers aged 40-55 that were either undergoing perimenopause or menopause, or had in the last five years.

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Women between the ages of 45 and 54 make up 20 per cent of the female workforce in the US. While many will experience the loss of sleep, mood swings, and hot flushes associated with menopause and perimenopause, very few workplaces offer support. Almost a quarter of respondents said they had taken time off work because of their symptoms, but hid the reason from their employer.

Workplaces that don’t recognise the issue are at risk of losing talented senior women, said Carrot chief executive Tammy Sun. ”A lot of the most skilled and most valuable women who are leaders are in this group and the replacement costs for those leaders is much higher than average,” she said. Another survey in the UK found 18 per cent of women going through menopause are thinking about quitting their jobs altogether.

Some governments and companies have started to recognise that this is an issue for their senior leaders. The UK government has a menopause taskforce and Japan has also begun to confront the issue. — Bloomberg