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How good are we at guessing what other people think? Underestimating public opinion might be stopping women with menopause symptoms from accessing support at work

Blog 18th Oct 2024

Many women experience uncomfortable and potentially debilitating symptoms during menopause, with significant impacts on health, well-being, and work productivity. 

This is both a health problem and a labour market problem: women experiencing at least one problematic menopausal symptom are 43% more likely to have left their jobs by the age of 55 than those experiencing no severe symptoms. Workplace adaptations can help women to manage unpleasant symptoms. 

We ran a large-scale UK-wide survey and found that:

  1. A large majority of the public support access to workplace adaptations for people experiencing menopause symptoms; but
  2. People, particularly women, underestimate the levels of public support for these policies. 

Underestimating acceptance might discourage women from requesting and ultimately accessing support. These findings highlight the need to counter misperceptions and to make support available for women in work.  

An estimated 400,000 women enter menopause each year, typically between the ages of 45 and 55. The vast majority of menopausal women experience symptoms which they describe as very difficult: 

In addition to impacting health and wellbeing, this can affect women’s ability to work: 1 in 10 women have left work due to menopause symptoms and 1 in 4 have considered it. 

Simple workplace adaptations, such as additional sick leave, access to flexible working, and adjustments to the work environment such as portable fans, can help women to manage their symptoms, and mitigate the impact on wellbeing and productivity at work. However, women have reported feeling that menopause is ‘taboo’ at work, and cannot be discussed – this may be linked to an assumption that their colleagues or managers would disapprove of requests for adaptations. Difficulty talking about menopause at work might restrict many women from accessing support. 

To understand whether menopause is actually a taboo matter that cannot be discussed, we asked a representative sample of over 4,000 UK adults whether they agree with better workplace support for people experiencing menopause symptoms and what percentage of people they thought would support the same statement. 

Our study found that the vast majority of people (70.5%) support access to these workplace adaptations for people with menopause symptoms. Interestingly, though, when we asked respondents how many people they thought would support adaptations, people underestimated the level of support, guessing on average that 54.5% of people would be in favour. Women were even more likely to underestimate support, guessing that only 52.7% would support adaptations. 

Support for adaptations varied with age and gender

Actual support for workplace adaptation also varied by gender: women were more likely to support workplace adaptations than men (73% vs 68%). 

Support also varied by age. Respondents aged 25-39 and 40-54 were more likely to support adaptations (73% and 77% respectively) than younger and older respondents aged 18-24 and 55+ (64% and 66% respectively). 

This suggests that despite high baseline support, there is scope to do more to increase awareness of the detrimental effects of menopausal symptoms, and the potentially beneficial impacts of adaptations to manage symptoms.

The gap between reported support and assumed support is linked to the behavioural science concept of ‘pluralistic ignorance’, the idea that individuals can mistakenly assume that their personal beliefs differ from the majority, even though most people privately share the same views.  

We know that individuals’ behaviour is strongly influenced by ‘social norms’: the unwritten rules and expectations that guide how individuals act within a group, based on what is considered to be acceptable. Knowing that they have the support of people, colleagues, and networks around them could reduce women’s potential concerns about negative social or career consequences, and encourage them to take up support to manage their symptoms. 

It’s not just about menopause – we see similar effects in areas like mental health support and even children accessing free school meals. Such misperceptions can lead to a reluctance to speak up or seek help, fearing negative judgement or social stigma. 

Recommendation 1: Make women aware of support for workplace adaptations to manage menopause symptoms

Sharing accurate feedback about the high levels of support for women in the workplace to access support could:

  • encourage women to make use of workplace support
  • better manage their symptoms
  • improve health and work outcomes

Employers keen to make use of this recommendation could implement a similar intervention by measuring attitudes among staff, and sharing this positive feedback with staff. This would be a straightforward and low cost intervention to show support for staff health and wellbeing.

Previous work conducted by BIT found that a similar intervention delivered at two global banks increased men’s intention to take shared parental leave.

Encouraging women to make use of workplace support relies on that support being available in the first place, and currently there is a significant gap between public support and workplace action. 

Recommendation 2: Workplaces and government policy should increase workplace support for women experiencing menopause symptoms and increase awareness of the support available

Our study shows that the majority of UK adults are supportive of workplace adaptations, and previous studies suggest that workplace adaptations would help women manage menopause symptoms and reduce the impact of menopause on the workforce. Making women aware of the support available, such as their entitlement to flexible working, is the first essential step to increasing uptake of support.

The impact of unpleasant menopause symptoms on women’s health, wellbeing and work is evident, but incorrect assumptions about potential judgement may be stopping women from accessing support to manage their symptoms. Simple and low-cost actions raising awareness of available adjustments could address the misperceptions people have about these policies and create a workplace culture where women feel comfortable requesting the support they need.

Authors

Design and development by Soapbox.