By Felisa Schneider, Chief Operating Officer, and Douglas Riddle, Curriculum Director of The Carol Emmott Foundation
Recently we provided an article for a sister publication on what organizations can do to improve the situation for women in various stages of menopause. As part of our research, we invited Carol Emmott Fellows to let us know how much attention their organizations are giving to creating menopause friendly policies and practices. The majority of our respondents said that there was no explicit attention given in their organizations. Maybe it would be useful to examine why this is so – and why this should be given organizational attention.
The business case is no longer speculative. A 2023 Mayo Clinic study estimated that menopause symptoms cost roughly $1.8 billion a year in lost work time in the United States, and $26.6 billion once medical expenses are included—and the authors note this is conservative, excluding the costs of reduced hours, lost employment, and early retirement that bear most directly on the senior leaders this article concerns. Among the women surveyed, 13% reported an adverse work outcome tied to their symptoms, and 11% missed work as a result. The pipeline implications are equally striking because menopause typically coincides with a woman’s progression into senior roles. A 2024 Catalyst survey of nearly 2,900 employees across eight countries found that stigma and lack of support drive attrition precisely at the point where the talent pool is already thinnest. And the experience is not only one of loss—a 2025 study of 64 women holding senior leadership roles across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom found that, with the right support, many did not merely endure menopause but emerged from it as more grounded and effective leaders.
What are the potential health impacts of perimenopause and menopause? Perhaps a quarter of women experience little or no disruption from menopause and only another quarter report significant disruptions that impact work and daily life. The assumptions about menopausal leaders are ubiquitous, however. Many women cooperate with the collective blindness about menopause because they report fear of being seen as less competent, more “emotional,” in danger of “aging out,” or unable to handle the pressures of senior leadership. As a result, few women are comfortable talking about the symptoms of menopause at work. The self-fulfilling nature of this dynamic is enacted because a large body of research has demonstrated that excess stress, lack of organizational support, burdens of caregiving, and unsupportive workplace climates are risk factors for more disruptive symptoms. When we treat a topic as too risky for open discussion, we confirm the prejudices that limit opportunities. While the specific treatments or practices for any given leader are her responsibility in consultation with her healthcare givers, organizations can do quite a lot to create a more supportive environment and provide reasonable resources.
It would be helpful to recognize that the effects of organizational indifference to menopause extend to care delivery. Jessica Scott at the University of Exeter and colleagues reviewed 75 studies on menopause in healthcare workplaces this year (2026) and found impacts on multiple organizational concerns. These included delayed advancement, reduced working hours, absenteeism, changes in role and early retirement among healthcare professionals. At a time when many healthcare institutions are significantly troubled by talent shortages, patients lose access to deep expertise and organizations lose senior leaders and the knowledge and wisdom they hold. These are unsurprising consequences of uninformed organizational practices that lead to healthcare workers working while sleep deprived, severely fatigued, and battling problems with concentration and vasomotor symptoms. Multiple studies conclude that stressful healthcare work worsens menopausal symptoms, and worsening symptoms increase workplace stress. While the literature presents no studies of direct patient care impact from menopause in terms of the usual measures (medication error rates, mortality, iatrogenic conditions, readmissions, or other clinical quality measures), the direction of the data is not encouraging.
The time is ripe to address the organizational policies, practices, and cultures that fail to keep pace with—and can ultimately worsen—the impact of this transition. We are seeing a large upswell of attention in the media through influencers like Dr. Mary Claire Haver, whose book, The New Menopause, and social media presence have a large impact. Melinda French Gates has committed significant funding to women’s health research, and Congresswoman Yvette Clarke has once again introduced bipartisan legislation to strengthen menopause research. The willingness of high-profile women to share their own journeys has had meaningful impact to reduce stigma. Naomi Watts, Halle Berry, Oprah Winfrey, Drew Barrymore, and Shania Twain come to mind.
The lesson is that we need to talk about this normal, universal reproductive life phase that will affect 80% of the healthcare workforce over time and give particular attention to the circumstances that affect women in leadership. Organizations that treat perimenopause and menopause as issues that are the responsibility of women themselves ignore significant organizational impact. Something that has implications for a large workforce demands strategic attention. No one wants to waste important resources, and this is one of the most important.