A review of the research
In 2020-21, Veterinary Woman in partnership with SPVS conducted a survey on the impact of menopause in the veterinary profession, and published the Menopause in the Veterinary Profession Report. At London Vet Show 2022, Liz Barton, Head of Communications at Vet CT and former Veterinary Woman editor, presented the findings of this report alongside Belinda Steffan, Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh Business School, who reviewed the latest findings from her research on menopause at work in their session on menopause interventions in veterinary practice.
Liz explained that the attrition rate of women from the profession is a major concern in the veterinary workforce, with little improvement over the last decade.
The VW/SPVS survey found significant impacts of the menopause on women’s physical and mental health, lives and work.
Some individuals had to cease certain aspects of clinical work due to the impact of the menopause. Others moved out of leadership roles or reduced their hours of work to cope with the symptoms. Physical conditions in the workplace were mentioned as important for sustainable working, and a lack of understanding amongst colleagues was reported to contribute to feelings of anxiety and low mood.
Conversely, supportive workplaces which showed understanding and facilitated flexible working were reported to make a positive impact on working life and mood.
Levels of awareness about the impact of menopause were 5 – 7.5 out of 10, and 90% of respondents said they would like to know more about the impacts of the menopause; the majority wanting to know more both from a personal and business / HR perspective. Women also commented on what measures their workplace could put in place to help:
“Education for all about what it entails so as and when it does happen, others will be more understanding.”
“Temperature control in all buildings. Clothing that helps with hot flushes. Decent break room where can get peace and quiet if have headache.”
“Someone to talk to who can provide advice and support.”
You can download and read the full survey here.
What is menopause?
- Peri-menopause: symptoms leading up to menopause (can last for up to 10 years)
- Menopause: the time at which one has not had a period for 12 months (avg age 51)
- Post-menopause: symptoms might end, or continue, or commence
- Menopause is individualised and difficult to diagnose as symptoms vary in severity
Belinda explained that currently a third of the female population are going through the menopause, and that more women are working through the menopause than ever before. Coping strategies and workplace support can help, and recent research has improved practical understanding.1
The University of Edinburgh Business School has been conducting research aiming to explore how women manage their menopause symptoms at work and how workplace support can help offset negative impact of symptoms on work-related attitudes and outcomes.
How do women experience aging at work?
The first study2 in 2019-20 was about how women experience the appearance of bodily ageing at work, and key finding from interviews were that very few sought assistance from external sources.
There was a clear acknowledgement of a detrimental impact of a range of physical and psychological menopause symptoms on work performance and retention.
There was also a desire to ‘legitimise’ the effect of menopause symptoms at work as a genuine workplace health issue, and women engaged in a self-deprecating narrative of menopause despite showing personal responsibility for health at work.
Subjects’ comments illustrated the difficult nature of dealing with the menopause and the significance of the impact on their lives:
“weeping wreck” … “I’m hiding” … “torment” … “such a big journey” … “a hidden decade of awfulness”
How do women cope with menopause and work?
The second study3 in 2020-21 took the form of a quantitative survey of 142 women of perimeopausal / menopausal working women and found that menopause symptoms negatively affect women’s perceptions of their performance and make them more likely to quit their jobs, although their actual performance was not necessarily decreased.
When women were suffering from psychological symptoms, female peer social support and supervisory support were protective of performance. Agentic behaviours around prioritising goals, optimising resources and using alternative resources to compensate for menopause-related difficulties were useful to protect performance when suffering from severe physical symptoms, for example, compensating for a loss in physical strength by asking others for help.
During the Covid pandemic, data was collected for a study in 2021-22 on menopause and work consisting of quantitative surveys of over 1500 women, plus qualitative open-ended interviews.
Key findings were that as the experience of physical and psychological symptoms intensified over 6 months, women experienced a significant increase in burnout, and as the physical symptoms become worse, women can protect their job performance by using flexible working arrangements.
However, qualitative data revealed some paradoxical views around the increased awareness of menopause, and whether this could have detrimental effects on women in the workplace:
“And now we’re talking about menopause and being able to accommodate women in the workplace going through menopause. And I have a real big concern that we are making women unemployable …. I love the fact that we’re being more supportive … [but] I have a concern that this is going to backfire.” (Eliza, 55, HR Director)
Belinda summed up a number of implications from her research:
Informal workplace support systems:
- Facilitate peer support groups, menopause cafes, etc.
Supervisory support:
- Training for line managers à increase the awareness and educate about the impact of menopause symptoms at work and how to support their staff.
Increase awareness of how menopause might be affecting women at work and to reduce the taboo nature of menopause:
- The introduction of menopause policy
- EDI training that talks about gendered health issues
- Individual approach to support
Micro-accommodations – provide a safe space for women to talk about menopause and ask for help
Reimagine performance – how is it defined and measured (perceived performance and retention)
Supporting healthy ageing at work
An ongoing study, taking place between 2021-24 is the Supporting healthy ageing at work (SHAW) project, which is supporting menopause as a ‘hidden health’ issue at work. The aim is to co-design innovative workplace interventions to support health and well-being of workers over 50.
The first stage found that there were various barriers to accessing health and wellbeing at work, including menopause. A fear of stigma is common, and difficulties can be encountered if an employee’s line manager is of a different age and/or gender and does not share relevant lived experience. Many people had low expectations of their employer, but a strong sense of personal responsibility for their health, meaning they may not ask for support but rely on their own coping mechanisms. Menopause symptoms were found to require more individualised and reactive support: awareness is welcomed by many women, but not all, so respecting an individual approach to managing menopause at work is crucial. Some women stressed that they didn’t want to be seen as ‘being ill’:
“I’m not ill. Yes, I’ve got symptoms and yes, if I needed time off for whatever it might be, absolutely, I would ask for it but I feel like it’s kind of more for me to manage.”
The second stage, currently underway, looks at moving from insight to menopause interventions together, with the aim of providing individuals and organisations with tools to better support their workforce, focusing on informal support and retention. Prototype workplace menopause interventions are being tested and refined with three planned interventions:
- Awareness – Line manager training on (gendered) ageism at work including a menopause-specific focus
- Time – Reflection tool to identify time spent on health (and other aspects of life)
- Communicating health – Encourage early disclosure of menopause
Menopause and the vet community
As a researcher on women’s health, Belinda is interested in vets as a professional group, and the specifics of how menopause may be affecting the profession. There is a lack of knowledge on the vet community and menopause, but there is a known retention and recruitment crisis. She is interested in why 85% of vets graduating university level are female, yet only 65% of practicing vets are female and career progression may be constrained for women4.
So, what aspects of vet work exacerbate menopause symptoms? The Survey on the Impact of Menopause in the Vet Profession 2020 found that joint aches could make surgery and heavy lifting more difficult, fatigue can affect poor concentration, heat and temperature control can be problematic and a competitive and high-performance culture can exacerbate anxiety and feelings of not being good enough. Vets have little control over their work schedules and when and how work is done.
“hot”…“difficult to take breaks”… “you’re either driving or on your feet”
It is important to identify contextual factors when considering menopause interventions. One example may be the wearing of uniforms and improving the comfort of menopausal staff by adjusting the materials used and availability of spare uniform items, as the police force have done. Timetabling is an area which may require attention to allow breaks, similarly to teachers, and access to toilets and the time to use them, which is a known difficulty for bus drivers. The farm and equine vet community are likely to have different challenges to small animal vets, which also needs to be considered.
Industry-appropriate menopause interventions could include the extension of industry policy, a suitable programme of events, and must consider structural issues such as masculinised industry norms, gendered ageism and time for an intervention.
Next steps for menopause interventions in veterinary practice
Stage 3 of the Supporting Health Aging at Work Study would like to look at the vet community as a site for testing workplace health interventions and supporting menopause within the broader issue of women’s health at work, including linking with the subjects of caring responsibilities and financial wellbeing.
Belinda has asked for assistance from the profession to contact her with information about individuals’ menopause experiences.
Questions suggested are:
- What is/was your experience of menopause at work?
- What has improved your experience of menopause at work?
- What have you tried that hasn’t worked?
- How would you like menopause symptoms to be supported at work?
Please get in touch with Belinda at bsteffan@ed.ac.uk
References:
1,3Steffan & Potočnik (2022). Thinking outside Pandora’s box: Revealing differential effects of coping with physical and psychological menopause symptoms at work. The Tavistock Institute. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00187267221089469
2B.Steffan (2020) Managing menopause at work: The contradictory nature of identity talk. Gender, Work and Organization, 28 (1) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gwao.12539
4 Treanor L & Marlow S (2021) Paws for thought? Analysing how prevailing masculinities constrain career progression for UK women veterinary surgeons. Human Relations, 74(1), 105-130. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726719846554
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