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The menopause penalty at work

Rita Ginja interviewed by
Tim Phillips
21 Mar 2025

Recorded at the CEPR Paris Symposium. The menopause can be a huge biological shock to women, but there has been almost no research into the consequences for their working lives. A new study uses administrative data from Norway and Sweden to discover the consequences of the menopause, both for health and for earnings. Rita Ginja of the University of Bergen tells Tim Phillips about the surprising size and persistence of the menopause penalty, and the difference that education and choice of career can make.

Last Updated 21 Mar 2025

Read the Discussion Paper

DP20169 The Menopause "Penalty" - Gabriella Conti, Rita Ginja, Petra Persson, Barton Willage use population-wide Norwegian and Swedish data and quasi-experimental methods, we show that a menopause diagnosis leads to lasting drops in earnings and employment, alongside greater reliance on social transfers.

Discussion paper