The life change quietly derailing careers
Menopause hits women at the peak of their earning years. What does it cost them?
Kate, a former elementary school teacher in Maryland who asked that her last name not be used, remembers when things began to fall apart at work. In her early 50s, she got hit with hot flashes, which she chalked up to working in stuffy classrooms with no air-conditioning. Then she started struggling to focus and felt increasingly anxious and depressed.
“Some days I felt like my brain was completely scrambled,” Kate, now 62, tells Yahoo.
The symptoms kept piling up — persistent headaches, blood pressure spikes and more — until she couldn’t ignore them anymore. She ultimately left her teaching job, convinced she was “physically and mentally falling apart.”
What Kate didn’t know was that she was in perimenopause.
She eventually took a “less than stimulating” government job, along with a pay cut. Looking back, she wishes she’d understood what was happening to her body sooner, rather than blaming herself. “When you don’t have language for what’s happening to your body,” she says, “you start questioning who you are.”
It’s a feeling Joan, a 52-year-old producer in New York who also asked that her last name not be used, knows well. During a round of layoffs at her previous company, she was let go for “underperformance” — something she now believes was caused by perimenopausal symptoms like brain fog and insomnia. “I was much more easily stressed and distracted,” Joan tells Yahoo.
Stories like Kate’s and Joan’s aren’t rare. More than 76% of American women ages 45 to 54 are in the workforce — a time when many are navigating perimenopause or menopause while also at the height of their careers. Common symptoms like difficulty concentrating , anxiety and insomnia can spill over into their professional lives, making it harder to advance at work or even just keep up with demanding roles.
While many women power through this stage of life, perimenopause symptoms can still impact their career trajectories, paychecks and even the broader economy. Experts say it doesn’t have to play out that way.
Menopause at work
Once a taboo topic, menopause is now firmly lodged in the cultural conversation thanks to celebrities like Halle Berry and Naomi Watts candidly sharing their experiences and a growing wave of wellness products, books and podcasts aimed at midlife health. But mentions of menopause, both its challenges and solutions, have been slower to seep into workplace culture. A 2023 Bank of America survey found that 58% of women felt uncomfortable talking about menopause at work, citing fears that it was too personal or that they might be judged by colleagues.
And yet the stage of life takes a toll: Women report that symptoms like fatigue, sleep difficulties, poor concentration and memory problems interfere with work more than half the time, according to a 2023 study .
“Almost every day I speak with extremely high-functioning women who are going through menopause and are frustrated that their productivity and performance at work are being affected,” Dr. Alicia Robbins , an ob-gyn in Connecticut, tells Yahoo. “I had one woman tell me, ‘It’s hard to run a board meeting with back-to-back hot flashes and my glasses fogging up and my blouse becoming wet from the sweat.’”
The cost of menopause
Menopause is also shaping major career decisions. A 2024 study from the Society for Women’s Health Research found that 1 in 4 menopausal women either considered not pursuing or didn’t go after a leadership opportunity, while 2 out of 5 women thought about leaving their job or decided to quit because of their symptoms.
All of this can carry serious financial consequences. Petra Persson , a faculty fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, conducted one of the first studies looking at the economics of menopause. Persson and her colleagues found that women’s earnings dropped by 10% in the four years after a menopause diagnosis because they had to scale back their hours or leave their current job. It’s what Persson calls the “menopause penalty.”
A Mayo Clinic study found that nearly 11% of women missed work or reduced their hours because of menopause symptoms. And those missed work days add up, costing businesses an estimated $1.8 billion annually in lost productivity.
So what can be done?
Experts say a good place to start is by making it easier for women to manage menopause symptoms without having to scale back their careers. That can look like having a more supportive work environment that includes flexible working hours , manager and employee education about menopause, and better access to menopause-focused health care under the company’s insurance plan.
But workplace changes are only part of the equation. For many women, including Joan, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is also key, easing disruptive symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia and mood swings. “Hormone therapy, for starters, can make a world of difference with regard to sleep, energy and mood, not to mention mental sharpness,” says Robbins.
These changes can have a meaningful impact: Persson’s study suggests that when women have more information about menopause and better access to care, including HRT, it not only helps them feel better — it also reduces the financial toll on their paychecks and the greater economy. “So many women I see are struggling with their work to the point they are rethinking staying in their current jobs,” says Robbins. “We are at a serious inflection point where we are losing valuable members of the workforce — and that doesn’t have to be the case.”
