Perimenopause and menopause, normal transitions that impact people who menstruate as hormone levels begin to fall off, might be more disruptive to the work lives of those experiencing symptoms than previously thought.
Perimenopause and menopause often come with a variety of symptoms, like hot flashes, anxiety, sleep disruptions, and brain fog. And, unfortunately, they don’t only show up after work hours—giving people who experience them an often challenging inconvenience to navigate at the office.
According to a new survey of 831 employed women age 45 and over from Womea, a midlife medicine platform, the large majority of people experiencing the transitions say their symptoms show up at work: In fact, a staggering 87% say that perimenopause or menopause symptoms have directly disrupted their job performance over the last year.
While things like joint pain, mood swings, and hot flashes were experienced by the survey’s respondents, the most common symptoms that disrupted work were: sleep disruption and fatigue (63%), brain fog and difficulty concentrating (58%), as well as anxiety or irritability (48%). Respondents said that the most difficult parts of their jobs included things that required multitasking (51%) and complex analysis or problem-solving (40%).
Overall, perimenopause and menopause symptoms weren’t so intense that they cost those experiencing them huge chunks of time at once, but time spent navigating the discomforts added up over time. On average, the women surveyed lost about an hour each workday, or around 276 hours of work a year. The result of managing symptoms of perimenopause or menopause meant more than a month—34.5 work days—lost each year.
Women say they feel the impact of the lost time, too.
About 1 in 6 (17%) say they feel they’ve lost out on either a promotion, a raise, or a high-visibility project due to the time they’ve spent managing the challenges of the hormonal transitions. Similarly, 52% say their symptoms have led to them doubting their own abilities, or feeling as if they’re being judged due to their symptoms, rather than their true capabilities.
While roughly 50% of the population experiences perimenopause and menopause at some point, the transitions have historically happened quietly. It’s only been in recent years that women have been opening up about what it really feels like when your body’s hormone levels rise and fall unpredictably.
Still, while around 75% to 85% of people who menstruate experience disrupting symptoms, most don’t seek care.
According to a 2025 Mayo Clinic survey of 5,000 women who experienced symptoms, with more than a third (34%) reporting moderate to severe symptoms, 80% did not seek care.
“Menopause is universal for women at midlife, the symptoms are common and disruptive, and yet, few women are receiving care that could help them,” lead author Ekta Kapoor, an endocrinologist and menopause specialist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, said, according to a report on the findings.
Kapoor continued, “This gap has real consequences for women’s health and quality of life, and it’s time we address it more proactively.”
With that in mind, it makes sense that people aren’t talking about their symptoms at work, either. According to the survey, 60% say they haven’t told anyone at their job about what they’re experiencing; 89% say their employer has no menopause or midlife health policy that might help them to better navigate the major life change.
While many women said they chose not to talk about the transitions because it simply wasn’t their employer’s business (60%), just as many said it was about either personal judgment or a fear of judgment.
The latest research points to just how essential it is to normalize these natural transitions in all spaces that women and menstruating people occupy—even at work.
