Introduction

This chapter discusses menopause issues in UK workplaces via a lens of trade unions and employment relations. There are four main reasons why a focus on trade unions is important to considerations of menopause in workplaces. The first is the historical role that trade unions have played in the emergent literature on menopause in the workplace. One of the earliest, most comprehensive and still relevant publications (Paul, 2003) was written on behalf of the British Trades Union Congress (TUC). Based on empirical data and providing comprehensive guidance, Paul's publication forms a foundation for much of the subsequent discussions in the field even though very little of this latter discourse was focused on trade unions. Although the early lead in the literature on menopause in work was not pursued by the TUC, they have more recently provided online resources on menopause at work and guidance on supporting women through menopause at work (see www.tuc.org.uk/menopa use-work).

Moreover, the TUC and its member unions play an important role in the provision of practical advice and the development of menopause policies and guidelines. This is a second justification for the focus on trade unions. Particularly noteworthy is the Wales TUC Cymru (2017) toolkit for trade unionists on menopause in the workplace, which is not only based on a solid evidence base but also provides clear guidance and comprehensive considerations on how to best introduce a menopause policy or guidelines in a workplace, including deciding which of the two may be most appropriate. Although usually far less comprehensive, many individual trade unions have provided similar advice and guidance, including most of the trade unions represented in the research discussed in this chapter: GMB, Britain's General Union (GMB, nd), National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT, 2021), National Education Union (NEU, 2019), Prospect (2018), Royal College of Nursing (RNC, 2020), University and College Union (UCU, 2018), UNISON, the public sector union (2021) and Unite the Union (Unite, 2012).

Introduction

This chapter considers the poor fit between workplace policy and menopause considerations in UK organizations, coming at these issues through the lens of flexible work and its utilization in workplaces. As the editors and other contributors here have amply demonstrated, for many organizations, policy and practice supporting menopause transitions in the workplace has constituted a blind spot in human resource management (HRM) processes. Rather than explicitly engaging in the issue, managers have tended to approach changing work needs around menopause through a work adjustment process. This is more typical of the way in which organizations have responded to the difficulties that 9– 5 office-bound working patterns can pose for older workers, for example, through designing flexible working arrangements or making other adjustments to standardized working patterns. This chapter takes the position that this kind of approach can be inappropriate for a stage in the lifecourse that is fluctuating and variable. Rather, organizational offers around flexible work would be improved through becoming more responsive, and managers more adept at designing and monitoring flexible working arrangements.

Loretto and Vickerstaff (2015) have made the case for adopting a more critical analysis of the role of flexible work in managing older workers, with gender cited as a key differentiator of experiences. Given the alignment of the average age of menopause at 51 (Brewis et al, 2017) with the ‘older worker’ category of 50+ frequently used in labour market analysis, it might be expected that menopause is a key component driving women's flexible work requests at this point in their working lives. Indeed, given rising life expectancy and the upward policy manipulation of the state pension age, and the pressures that these place upon older workers to remain active in the workforce well beyond menopause, there is a strong economic imperative for more responsive solutions to be developed around flexible work that can support the extension of working lives. In this chapter, these issues are considered with reference to three separate pieces of research by the author which have resonance for bringing together flexible work around menopause management.

In this short editorial conclusion, we draw out the key messages offered throughout the volume's chapters, highlighting areas where these chapters complement each other and/or make contributions to the knowledge base on menopause transitions and the workplace. This foundation is then used to re-assess areas which require further development, or which have opened up as new research areas given the now expanded knowledge base. This culminates in a clear research agenda to follow going forwards as we hope to see menopause transitions in the workplace becoming a more established research field.

Our edited volume has brought together chapters covering menopause as a biopsychosocial process; transitions within workplaces; flexible working; trade unions, the spatial context of work; and male allyship in organizations. With this breadth of subject matter, we have made clear contributions and advanced knowledge on menopause in the following, important ways. First, the chapters have helped counter the still predominantly biomedical discourse around menopause and have furthered the discussions around a biopsychosocial approach. Karen Throsby and Celia Roberts do this most prominently in Chapter 2, and set the tone for the whole volume thereby. As their analysis makes clear, although the provision of HRT is an important subject and the focus on the availability of such medication in UK parliamentary activities is welcome (All-Party Parliamentary Group on Menopause, 2022; Women and Equalities Committee, 2022), there is a need for an extension of support for menopausal women to consider social and cultural factors. We also need, as Karen and Celia establish, to open up the conversation around menopause to include those who are often excluded – LGBTQI+ people, people with disabilities, people who do not have children and those who go through premature menopause – in workplaces and elsewhere.

Equally, public discussions around menopause have increased awareness, yet knowledge about how best to practically implement knowledge and make a difference in families, social settings and workplaces – our focus here – is still underdeveloped. Practice is in fact running considerably ahead of research here, and as such academic assessments of menopause interventions in organizations are still very much needed. Jane Parry's analysis of flexible work in Chapter 3 is therefore an important addition to the knowledge base.

In this chapter, we explore menopause transition in the workplace. Menopause describes the cessation of periods and is a natural life stage. Menopause transition, or ‘peri-menopause’, is ‘the time between onset of menstrual irregularity and the menopause’ (O’Neill and Eden, 2017, p 303).1 It is associated with a number of symptoms, usually experienced between the ages of 45– 55, which include hot flushes, night sweats, mood changes, poor concentration, memory loss, anxiety and weight gain. How each woman experiences menopause transition is different and unique (Banks, 2019) and the impact, duration, onset and severity of symptoms experienced vary greatly. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that, for many, transition symptoms have a negative effect on working lives (Griffiths and Hunter, 2014), with nearly 40 per cent of those in transition agreeing that menopausal symptoms had some negative effect on their work performance (Griffiths, Maclennan and Hassard, 2013). Indeed, a recent study suggests that up to a quarter of those experiencing serious symptoms have left employment (Powell, 2021).

There are a number of reasons why this workplace impact should concern employers, drawing on legal, business and social justice cases (Atkinson et al, 2021). Legally, organizations have a responsibility to employees in menopause transition. They need, for example, to ensure compliance with both the Equality Act 2010 and Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and ensure they are aware of ‘best practice’ guidelines. Employer failure to recognize the impact of menopause in the workplace has resulted in a number of employer losses at employment tribunal on the grounds of discrimination and unfair dismissal. The first was recorded in 2012 (Merchant vs BT) and, while numbers are still small, cases brought had grown to ten in the first half of 2021 (Hill, 2021). There is also clearly a strong business case: the workforce is ageing and it is estimated that there are 4.3 million workers who identify as cis women aged between 50– 64 in the UK workforce (ONS, 2019). Given that the average age of menopause is 51, a significant number will be working while in transition (O’Neill and Eden, 2017).

Introduction

It is a little-known fact that only humans and two species of whale go through menopause. We learned this during a 2016 BBC documentary – ‘The whale menopause’ – that described menopause as ‘one of human evolution's great mysteries’ (BBC Radio 4, 2016). Presenting the case of 100+ year-old killer whale (‘J2’), anthropomorphically dubbed ‘Granny’, the programme marvelled at the centrality of the non-reproductive female to the survival of the family group, or pod, concluding that older female killer whales are ‘not redundant. They actually have an important role to play’. Granny's physical capacity to ‘prolifically’ breach (that is, to rise out of the water) was also noted as marvellous, given her age. In 2017, when her death was announced, Granny was described as ‘the leader’ and ‘matriarch’ of the group in a BBC radio report (BBC Radio 4, 2017). The interviewed scientist stated that ‘post-reproductive females’ like Granny direct the pod to navigate safely through foraging grounds, ‘storing ecological knowledge for the group’. Dependent adult sons (age 30+ years) are, the scientist reported, eight times more likely to perish when post-reproductive females die: these sons are dependent on their mothers for food. Again, it was confirmed that the females of only two species of whale and humans live beyond their reproductive years.

Humans, the 2016 documentary explained, have much to learn from this fact in understanding the value of older women's lives. It suggested that the story of the killer whales has the empowering potential for appreciating ‘the importance of older females in society’ (BBC Radio 4, 2016). For us, this conclusion indicates the astonishing depth and strength of prevailing accounts of women's core value as reproductive beings and of menopause as a catastrophic ending to reproductive capacities. Although extensively studied within biology and medicine, menopause remains ‘a mystery’ because of the persistent social, cultural and scientific difficulties in conceptualizing female human and nonhuman animals’ value beyond species propagation.

The ‘Rethinking Work, Ageing and Retirement’ book series explores the impact of extended working lives and changes to welfare states and labour markets on people, organizations and society. The radical changes affecting work and retirement were an impetus for the series. In particular, rising state pension ages, shifts towards individual responsibility and risk in private pensions saving, and the abolition of mandatory retirement ages in a number of countries now frame decisions about retirement. In theory, these policy developments extend individual discretion about continuing in employment, which may create new opportunities for those who want – and are able – to work. In practice, however, it arguably makes retirement timing only a hypothetical choice that people can be held more accountable for. Individuals must now assume greater financial responsibility for remaining in work as long as they need to. For significant numbers of older people this may be difficult to achieve, however, given evidence of widespread age discrimination in the labour market and reduced employment opportunities for this group. This is in addition to difficulties individuals experience in the labour market at any age – for example, due to racism or ableism, or constraints on time and energy stemming from outside paid work, such as care responsibilities. Work itself also appears to be getting more precarious, albeit to differing degrees across countries, and the management of older workers is becoming less straightforward given uncertainties around retirement.

It is in this context, we are delighted to welcome this excellent volume on menopause transitions and the workplace edited by Vanessa Beck and Jo Brewis. It is well established that health-related issues have a significant impact on whether people continue working up to, and beyond, pension ages. We also know, as the editors of this volume point out in their introduction, that over half of women will at some stage experience one or more severe symptom(s) of menopause and some will consider leaving work because of this. Despite this, menopause transitions in the workplace have only recently been recognized as an issue of importance within the academic and policy literature, and this was in part because of the significant work the editors and authors of this book have done on this topic.