What are the unintended consequences of paid policies like menstrual and menopausal leave for women?
Australia is considering 12 days extra paid leave for women for women’s general health issues - or ~5% of current working days per year.
Is this a win for gender equality? (Is it even enough?? If you’re having hot flushes every day for years?) - Or does it discourage employers from hiring women (especially older women who we are already hideously biased against) or paying them the same as men when they are working 2.5 weeks less than comparable men a year?
And what about “manopause”? Some health services in the UK are offering make employees generous manopause leave packages. Fair and good? - However, if everyone gets extra leave every year, regardless of gender - this is not really about gender equality anymore but about the more macro trend of less-work-more-life balance - and a reminder that counting days and hours in office is fast becoming an uncontrollable, exception-ridden nightmare - and that the mindset shift from salary and time defined incomes towards value share outcomes remuneration may well be the only way out of increasingly complicated incentives and demands.
Fairness and equity are not exactly the same - now are they?
Your thoughts?
Read more :
Period leave as a policy position : https://harpersbazaar.com.au/menstrual-leave-australia/#:~:text=What%20would%20Australia's%20menstrual%20leave,a%20year%20of%20paid%20leave
Fair? https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/24/menopause-law-equalities-act-uk-change-rejected
Manopause leave : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/jobs/work-benefits/nhs-trust-staff-given-paid-leave-male-menopause/
Female age-based workplace discrimination starts at age 35 😱😱😱: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/economy/age-discrimination-in-the-workplace-starts-as-early-as-35
Manopause leave?