MAG 2023. Authors: Anne Gielen (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam – Erasmus School of Economics); Esmee Zwiers (Universiteit van Amsterdam – Faculteit Economie en Bedrijfskunde)
The share of middle-aged working women has increased over the past decades. This implies that an increasing number of women experience a major biological transition during their working lives: the menopause. Although most women experience various types of physical and mental discomfort in the years around menopause, we know little about the impact of these symptoms on their careers. This project fills this gap in the literature by studying how experiencing menopausal symptoms influences the labor market and health outcomes of women in the years around menopause. To causally identify these effects, we use two sources of naturally occurring variation. First, we exploit variation in the age at menopause across women. Second, we use variation in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) treatment due to controversy in the early 2000s that was alleviated in 2017. The results of this project will provide important results to bolster gender equality in the labor market.
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