Menopause and the workplace: New directions in HRM research and HR practice

• Author: Jo Brewis,Joanne Duberley,Vanessa Beck,Andrea Davies,Carol Atkinson
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12294
• Date: 01 January 2021

REVIEW

Menopause and the workplace: New directions

in HRM research and HR practice

Carol Atkinson

1

| Vanessa Beck

2

| Jo Brewis

3

|

Andrea Davies

4

| Joanne Duberley

5

1

Department of People and Performance,

Manchester Metropolitan University Business

School, Manchester, UK

2

Department of Management, School of

Economics, Finance and Management,

University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

3

Department of People and Organisations,

The Open University Business School, Milton

Keynes, UK

4

Department of Strategic Management and

Marketing, Faculty of Business and Law, De

Montfort University, Leicester, UK

5

Department of Management, Birmingham

Business School, University of Birmingham,

University House, Birmingham, UK

Correspondence

Jo Brewis, Department of People and

Organisations, The Open University Business

School, Michael Young Building, Walton Hall,

Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK.

Email: joanna.brewis@open.ac.uk

[Correction added on 8 May 2020, after first

online publication: the order of authors has

been updated in this current version.]

Abstract

This paper offers two key arguments. The first is that HRM

scholars and HR practitioners need to pay a good deal more

attention to the bi-directional relationship between meno-

pause and the workplace—how menopausal symptoms can

affect women's experience of work and how work can exac-

erbate a woman's symptoms. We outline the social respon-

sibility, demographic, legal and business cases which explain

the urgency of more research and more concerted practice

in this area. Our second argument concerns the importance

of future research and practice adopting an intersectional

political economy approach, in order to better understand

the considerable differences between how women going

through menopause transition experience work. Here, we

offer arguments ranging from the macro- through the

meso- down to the micro-level of these differences, in so

doing setting an agenda for the work to come on this very

significant issue.

KEYWORDS

bio-medical approach, bio-psycho-cultural approach,

intersectional political economy, menopause, work

1|INTRODUCTION

This paper focuses on the two-way relationship between menopause and work—in other words, how symptoms can

make working life more challenging for women in menopause transition or post-menopause; and how, in turn, work-

ing life might make menopause symptoms worse. Menopause refers to the point in a woman's life when she has not

menstruated for a year. On average women attain menopause at 51, and transition or peri-menopausal symptoms

Received: 29 May 2019 Revised: 18 February 2020 Accepted: 7 April 2020

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12294

Hum Resour Manag J. 2021;31:49–64. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 49

begin at 48, sometimes lasting for a decade or more into post-menopause. However, some women experience men-

opause (much) earlier, due to what is known clinically as premature or primary ovarian insufficiency. It is usually a

natural experience for cis women and some of those who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming

(TGNC).

1

But others are plunged into “cliff edge”menopause because of medical treatments, for example, for cancer

or oophorectomies.

First, we discuss why HRM scholars and HR practitioners should pay attention to menopause as a workplace

issue. Second, we argue that menopause in the context of work needs to be understood through what we call an

intersectional political economy approach, which integrates feminist political economy and intersectionality theory.

Feminist political economy insists on gendering a macro-level political economy analysis of relationships between

individuals, the state, the economy and wider society. Intersectionality, also originating in feminist scholarship

(Crenshaw, 1989) allows us to include additional meso- and micro-level self-identifications and identifications per-

formed by others beyond gender, including occupation, class, employment type, income, education, sexuality, (dis)

ability, motherhood, race, ethnicity, migration status and age in workplace analysis. It offers the metaphor of a cross-

roads of these factors. Intersectionality therefore treats these categories of difference not as “separate, stable axes

of identity [or context] that criss-cross each other in a specific subjectivity […but as] systems of meaning and under-

standing that act together in a formative way to define each other”(de Souza, Brewis, & Rumens, 2016, p. 605).

Drawing these two complementary perspectives together into an intersectional political economy approach thus

affords exploration of macro-, meso- and micro-level factors which might inform women's experiences of menopause

transition in the workplace.

Applying an intersectional political economy approach also supports a move beyond a micro-level bio-medical

approach to menopause as a disease or form of decline, the problems with which we outline later, while expanding a

bio-psycho-cultural approach as an alternative. The latter, which has gained traction in the wider menopause litera-

ture since the 1990s, contends that a woman's experience of menopause must be understood in the context of both

her psychological make-up and her socio-cultural location—themselves interconnected in a “tangled web”of relations

Practitioner Notes

What is currently known

•HRM research currently pays almost no attention to the issue of menopause in the workplace, and HR

policy and practice is also lacking in this area.

•We set out the social responsibility, demographic, legal and business reasons as to why this is

problematic.

What this paper adds

•We provide an agenda for future HRM research into the menopause, based on what we call an

intersectional political economy approach.

•This connects together macro-, meso- and micro-levels of women's experiences of menopause and the

workplace in order to grasp the significant differences between these experiences more accurately.

The implications for practitioners

•We argue that HR policy and practice on menopause in the workplace should, similarly, address key

issues identified in this paper.

50 ATKINSON ET AL.