Are We Looking at the Wrong Business Case for Menopause at Work?

Most workplace conversations about the business case for menopause support tend to come back to the same things: absence, productivity, retention and the cost of losing experienced women. Those things matter, of course. But the more I look at some of the newer research, the more I wonder whether we are looking at the business case too narrowly.

Recent modelling from Fidelity International gives us an interesting reason to think again. It suggests that a woman who takes one year out of the workforce at around age 51 could reach retirement with almost £20,000 less in her pension pot. Two years out could create a gap of nearly £37,000, while five years away from work could leave a difference of more than £86,000.

Those are big, lifechanging numbers. But actually, the £86,000 is not the bit I find most interesting.

What I find more interesting is what has to happen in a woman’s working life for stepping away from a career she has spent decades building to start feeling like the best, or perhaps only, option.

Because that decision usually starts much earlier.

Leaving work is often the end of the story

A woman does not usually wake up one morning, develop menopausal symptoms and decide to leave work for five years. There is often a much longer build-up.

It might start with poor sleep, anxiety, cognitive changes or a sense that work suddenly requires far more effort than it used to. Confidence starts to wobble. She stops putting herself forward for things because she already feels stretched. Travel becomes harder. The senior role that looked exciting six months ago now feels completely overwhelming. Maybe she reduces her hours, steps sideways for a while or takes a period of leave.

Eventually, leaving can start to feel like the sensible option.

And none of those earlier moments may ever appear in organisational data as menopause.

That is the part I think we miss when we focus too much on retention. A woman can technically still be in work while her career is becoming smaller. She can stop applying for promotions, turn down leadership opportunities, avoid roles that involve travel or move into work that feels easier to sustain.

Sometimes that is exactly what she wants. There is nothing inherently negative about deciding that you want less responsibility, fewer hours or a different kind of working life.

But sometimes it is not really a choice.

Sometimes it is what happens when the job cannot bend at all while her health temporarily needs it to.

That feels like a much more important thing for employers to understand.

The financial impact does not end when someone comes back to work

This is where the Fidelity modelling becomes particularly interesting.

Taking time away from work does not just mean losing salary during that period. It can mean lower pension contributions, lost employer contributions, slower salary progression, missed bonuses and potentially missed promotions too. And once that gap opens up, it is not always easy to close again.

Fidelity also reported that only 13% of women said they were able to increase their savings after returning to work, compared with 27% of men.

And of course, menopause does not arrive in isolation. By the time many women reach their late 40s and 50s, there may already have been years of working part-time, career breaks, childcare, eldercare or simply putting somebody else’s career first for a while. All of that has an impact on earnings and pensions.

So if menopause then becomes another point at which a woman feels she needs to step back, we may be adding another financial penalty at exactly the point in her career when she might otherwise be reaching her highest earning years.

That changes the conversation for me.

It is not just about whether someone is coping with symptoms at work. It is also about what happens to her economic security if the workplace gives her no realistic option other than stepping away.

But I don’t want us to turn this into another scary statistic

There is an obvious way to use these numbers: “Menopause could cost a woman £86,000.”

It is a striking headline. It probably gets clicks. And I can already imagine it being used in workplace presentations as another reason employers need to act.

But I think we need to be quite careful with that.

First, because this is modelling. It is based on a particular scenario and should not be presented as something that will happen to every woman who takes time out.

Second, if every conversation about women’s health becomes about cost, risk and lost productivity, we can very quickly end up positioning women themselves as the problem. That is exactly the framing I think we need to move away from.

I am much more interested in asking a different question:

What is it about the way work is designed that can turn a temporary period of poor health into a long-term career and financial consequence?

That takes us somewhere far more useful.

Sometimes the issue is not the role. It is how the role is being done.

Take something as simple as sleep.

A woman in a senior role may still be completely capable of doing her job, but if she is experiencing severe insomnia, three days of commuting, early morning meetings and frequent travel might become almost impossible for a period of time.

The obvious conclusion can become, “Maybe this role is too much now.”

But maybe the role is not the problem.

Maybe the problem is that we have designed it in a way that assumes every person can work in exactly the same way, every week, all year round, indefinitely.

Would six months with fewer early starts, less unnecessary travel or a bit more flexibility around working location allow that woman to continue in a role she values?

Quite possibly.

And that is a very different outcome from stepping down because the job feels unsustainable.

This is why I think we need to be cautious about interpreting a temporary change in capacity as a permanent change in capability.

A woman can need more support for a period of time and still be ambitious. She can ask for flexibility and still want the promotion. She can be struggling with symptoms and still be an excellent leader.

Those things can all be true at once.

Staying employed is not the same thing as continuing to have a career

This is probably the biggest gap I see in the workplace menopause conversation.

We talk a lot about retaining women. We talk about absence, wellbeing, adjustments and keeping people in work.

But staying in work is not the same thing as continuing to progress.

A woman may remain with the same organisation for another ten years and still quietly step away from opportunities that would have increased her salary, influence or pension. If all we look at is whether she resigned, our data will tell us everything is fine.

That is why I think organisations should be asking some slightly different questions.

Are women in midlife (actually 35+ if we’re talking about the onset of perimenopause) continuing to apply for senior roles? Are they still represented in leadership pipelines? If someone reduces her hours for a while, is she able to increase them again later without feeling that she has permanently stepped off the career ladder? Do temporary adjustments change the way managers perceive somebody’s potential or ambition?

And perhaps most importantly, do women feel they can say, “I am struggling right now,” without worrying that the next opportunity will quietly go to somebody else?

That feels like a much better test of whether support is really working.

Managers can either keep doors open or quietly close them

A lot of this comes down to what happens when a woman first says she is struggling.

A good manager can help somebody work out what she needs, understand what might be temporary, protect her confidence and keep the door open to future opportunities.

A poor response can have the opposite effect, even when the intention is good.

Sometimes a manager immediately suggests reducing responsibilities because they think they are helping. Sometimes they stop offering stretch opportunities because they do not want to put more pressure on someone. Sometimes flexibility gets interpreted as a lack of ambition.

None of this has to be overtly discriminatory to have an impact.

It can be very subtle.

And that is why manager training needs to be about more than symptoms.

Managers need to understand that health, confidence, identity and careers all interact. They need to know that someone asking for support today may still want the bigger role next year, and that making an adjustment should not quietly become a judgement about someone’s future potential.

There is a wider gender equality issue here

The timing of menopause within women’s careers makes all of this even more important.

For many women, midlife is when they have accumulated enormous experience. They know their industry. They know how organisations work. They have credibility, networks and judgement that have taken decades to build.

They may also finally have more space to focus on their career than they did earlier in life.

So if women begin stepping back at exactly this point, we should care about that for reasons that go well beyond menopause.

Organisations lose expertise and leadership. Women lose earning potential and long-term financial security. And we risk losing women from senior pipelines just as they are reaching some of the most valuable stages of their careers.

That is why I do not think menopause belongs only in wellbeing.

It belongs in conversations about talent, progression, leadership, pensions and gender equality too.

Menopause Action Plans could be a chance to think much bigger

This is also why I think the new focus on Menopause Action Plans is interesting.

If organisations are going to formally set out what they are doing to support women through menopause, there is a real opportunity to make those plans about more than awareness sessions and support networks.

Those things may absolutely have a place. I’ve seen what a difference they can make.

But I would also want to know whether the organisation is looking at job design, flexible working, occupational health, promotion processes, absence management, return-to-work support and the way temporary adjustments interact with career development.

I would want to know whether someone who steps back for six months can step forward again.

I would want to know whether women understand the financial implications of reducing hours or taking time out, and whether employers can provide access to impartial financial education so people can make informed choices.

And I would want to know whether the systems themselves are unintentionally turning temporary health changes into career penalties.

That feels like a far more meaningful use of an action plan.

Retention is not enough

If organisations really want to understand whether their menopause support is working, I do not think retention on its own tells us very much.

You can retain women while their careers slowly contract.

So alongside absence and turnover data, I would be interested in progression, confidence, opportunity and choice.

Did the support available help someone stay in a role she valued? Did asking for help change the way she was perceived? Did she still feel she had access to promotion and development? If she stepped back, was she able to step forward again later?

And I would ask women directly.

Because there is only so much we can learn from dashboards.

Sometimes the most important thing is simply asking, “Did this actually help?”

The goal should be more choice, not more pressure

There is one thing I want to be really clear about here.

The answer is not that every woman should stay in full-time work throughout menopause. That would just create another expectation for women to live up to, and we really don’t need that.

Some women will want to reduce their hours. Some will want to change careers. Some will take time out. Some will decide they care less about work than they used to, and feel completely at peace with that.

That is fine.

The important thing is whether those decisions feel like choices. And whether women have the right information, autonomy and agency to make the best choices for them.

There is a huge difference between saying, “I have thought about what I want from this stage of my life and I am choosing to work differently,” and saying, “I cannot see any way of staying in this job while feeling like this, so I suppose I have to leave.”

Good workplaces create enough flexibility that more than one option remains open.

Maybe that is the real business case

The Fidelity figures are useful because they make something visible that can otherwise be very difficult to see.

A relatively short period of poor health can have consequences that last for years, particularly when it affects earnings, pensions and progression. But I think the bigger lesson is about women’s careers.

If workplaces can respond early, flex intelligently and resist making assumptions about women’s ambition or capability, they may prevent a temporary health challenge becoming a permanent career setback.

That is obviously good for women.

But it is also good for organisations that have spent years developing experienced, talented people and would presumably prefer not to lose them just as they are reaching some of the most valuable stages of their careers.

So maybe the business case for menopause support is not really about reducing the cost of absence or persuading women to stay.

Maybe it is about keeping careers open.

Keeping choices open.

And making sure that needing support for a period of time does not quietly change the course of someone’s entire working life.

Want to support women through menopause without limiting their careers?

At See Her Thrive, we help organisations take a more thoughtful approach to menopause and women’s health at work. That means going beyond awareness and policies to look at the things that really shape women’s experience of work, including manager capability, job design, flexibility, progression, psychological safety and culture.

Our aim is not simply to help women “cope” at work. It is to help organisations create the conditions for women to stay well, keep their options open and continue to progress and lead.

Explore our services or get in touch to talk about how we can support your organisation. Read the Fidelity report here.