IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17789.html

Beyond Hot Flashes: The Career Cost of Menopause

Author

Listed:
  • Abrahamsson, Sara

    (Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH))

  • Barschkett, Mara

    (University of Bonn)

  • Flatø, Martin

    (Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH))

Abstract

Menopause marks a crucial juncture in women's lives and careers. We provide novel evidence on the effects of menopause onset on labor and health outcomes. Combining Norwegian register with survey data from the HUNT study on self-reported menopause age, we apply a stacked difference-in-differences design. Our findings show declines in earnings, increased sick leave, and more diagnoses related to menopause. Additionally, women without symptoms, and those with mild symptoms who seek care, do not experience earnings losses. Moreover, timely healthcare-seeking and treatment onset can mitigate earnings losses. This suggests that policies promoting menopause awareness could alleviate individual and societal burdens.

Suggested Citation

  • Abrahamsson, Sara & Barschkett, Mara & Flatø, Martin, 2025. "Beyond Hot Flashes: The Career Cost of Menopause," IZA Discussion Papers 17789, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17789
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17789.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais & Johanna Posch & Andreas Steinhauer & Josef Zweimüller, 2019. "Child Penalties across Countries: Evidence and Explanations," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 122-126, May.
    2. Alexander Ahammer & Ulrich Glogowsky & Martin Halla & Timo Hener, 2023. "The Parenthood Penalty in Mental Health: Evidence from Austria and Denmark," CESifo Working Paper Series 10676, CESifo.
    3. Patrick Royston & Paul C. Lambert, 2011. "Flexible Parametric Survival Analysis Using Stata: Beyond the Cox Model," Stata Press books, StataCorp LLC, number fpsaus, March.
    4. Valentina Melentyeva & Lukas Riedel, 2023. "Child Penalty Estimation and Mothers’ Age at First Birth," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 266, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    5. Bryson, Alex & Conti, Gabriella & Hardy, Rebecca & Peycheva, Darina & Sullivan, Alice, 2022. "The consequences of early menopause and menopause symptoms for labour market participation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    6. Martin Eckhoff Andresen & Emily Nix, 2022. "What Causes the Child Penalty? Evidence from Adopting and Same-Sex Couples," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(4), pages 971-1004.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Glogowsky, Ulrich & Hansen, Emanuel & Sachs, Dominik & Lüthen, Holger, 2025. "The evolution of child-related gender inequality in Germany and the role of family policies, 1960–2018," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    2. Gabriella Conti & Rita Ginja & Petra Persson & Barton Willage, 2024. "The menopause "penalty"," IFS Working Papers W24/05, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    3. Aguilar-Gomez, Sandra & Arceo-Gomez, Eva O. & De la Cruz Toledo, Elia, 2026. "Inside the black box of child penalties: Unpaid work and household structure," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    4. Sun, Ang & Xia, Fang & Zhang, Xuan, 2025. "The motherhood penalty on health: Evidence from China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    5. Dehos, Fabian T. & Paul, Marie Elina & Schäfer, Wiebke & Süß, Karolin, 2024. "Time of Change: Health Effects of Motherhood," IZA Discussion Papers 16942, IZA Network @ LISER.
    6. Jessen, Jonas & Kinne, Lavinia & Battisti, Michele, 2026. "Child penalties in labour market skills," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    7. Zhang, Mingxue & Wang, Yue & Hou, Lingling, 2024. "Gender norms and the child penalty in China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 277-291.
    8. Estefanía Galván & Cecilia García‐Peñalosa, 2025. "Interactions among gender norms: Evidence from US couples," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 72(1), February.
    9. Gørtz, Mette & Sander, Sarah & Sevilla, Almudena, 2025. "Does the child penalty strike twice?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    10. Lidia Farré & Cristina Felfe & Libertad González Luna & Patrick Schneider, 2022. "Changing gender norms across generations: Evidence from a paternity leave reform," Economics Working Papers 1812, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    11. Bütikofer, Aline & Karadakic, René & Willén, Alexander, 2025. "Parenthood and the gender gap in commuting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    12. Åslund, Olof & Karimi, Arizo & Sundberg, Anton, 2025. "Origin, norms, and the motherhood penalty," Working Paper Series 2025:1, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    13. Dor Leventer, 2026. "Identification of Child Penalties," Papers 2602.07486, arXiv.org.
    14. Mathias Jensen & Abigail Adams & Barbara Petrongolo, 2024. "Birth Timing and Spacing: Implications for Parental Leave Dynamics and Child Penalties," Economics Series Working Papers 1048, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. John Eric Humphries & Juanna Schrøter Joensen & Gregory F. Veramendi, 2024. "The Gender Wage Gap: Skills, Sorting, and Returns," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 114, pages 259-264, May.
    16. Sonia Bhalotra & N. Meltem Daysal & Louis Fréget & Jonas Cuzulan Hirani & Priyama Majumdar & Mircea Trandafir & Miriam Wüst & Tom Zohar, 2026. "Postpartum depression and the motherhood penalty," IFS Working Papers W26/06, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    17. Olivetti, Claudia & Pan, Jessica & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2024. "The evolution of gender in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics,, Elsevier.
    18. Alessandra Casarico & Salvatore Lattanzio, 2023. "Behind the child penalty: understanding what contributes to the labour market costs of motherhood," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1489-1511, July.
    19. Eunice S. Han, 2024. "How did the COVID‐19 pandemic affect men's and women's returns to unionization?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 172-204, April.
    20. Albanesi, Stefania & Olivetti, Claudia & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2022. "Families, labor markets and policy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118038, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17789. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.