Menopause in the Classroom: An Untold Story for Australian Teachers
Estimated Reading Time: 3.5 minutes
Teaching is an incredibly rewarding yet demanding career. Teachers experience high levels of stress at work, and this stress can intensify the symptoms of menopause.
In a workforce that is 75% female, around 82,576 women are likely to be impacted by menopause and retire by the age of 54. If we are to keep our teachers well and at work, we need to understand the impact of menopause on teachers in Australia and identify opportunities to make positive changes in this important sector.
The Stress of Being a Teacher
Whether it's high school, primary school, university, or college, teachers are telling me the same thing.
Australian teachers experience high levels of stress in three main areas: excessive workloads, challenging student behaviours, and external pressures or expectations. Teachers I've spoken with talk about these stressors in a matter-of-fact way. They see stress as just part of the job - it has been normalised. They simply put up with stress and "get on with it."
Whether it's high school, primary school, university, or college, teachers are telling me the same thing. They have a heavy load of lesson preparation, planning, and administrative work to take home. They're facing significant pressures in the staff room and behavioural issues in the classroom. It's no wonder teachers in Australia are working an average of 43 hours and up to 60 hours per week, with rates of burnout sky-high.
Some sectors of our teaching workforce report higher levels of stress: early career teachers, primary teachers, and rural/remote teachers. Understaffing is a key issue. A 2021 national survey found that stress, burnout, and sleep disturbance of Australian school leaders were nearly twice as high compared to the general population.
It's not just about individual stressors - it's also stressors from the overall school environment and climate. Schools with a higher proportion of stressed teachers across multiple factors tend to have lower teacher commitment and well-being.
Looking at this from Safe Work Australia's perspective, teaching is a career with its own unique psychosocial hazards: high job demands, role conflict, low job control, inadequate reward and recognition, and sometimes poor organisational change management.
The Impact of Teachers' Stress on Menopause Symptoms
With recent surveys showing that around 75-85% of women have at least one severe menopause symptom that disrupts work, it's clear that a substantial portion of Australia's teaching workforce - around 82,576 women - are likely to be impacted at work.
Of a teaching workforce of 311,655 full-time equivalent (FTE) teaching staff in Australia in 2021, about 72% are women, and 46% of those are aged 40-54 and likely going through menopause.
With recent surveys showing that around 75-85% of women have at least one severe menopause symptom that disrupts work, it's clear that a substantial portion of Australia's teaching workforce - around 82,576 women - is likely to be impacted at work.
There is limited data specifically on the impact of menopause on teachers in Australia, but there are strong links between stress, burnout and menopause.
And there is plenty of evidence that stress can worsen symptoms like poor sleep, fatigue, anxiety, concentration, and menstrual flow. These challenges have a flow-on impact on a teacher's ability to manage classrooms, workloads, and deadlines. It leads us to ask:
How will a teacher cope in a mentally demanding career and school environment if they are struggling with anxiety in menopause?
How will teachers handle excessive workloads, deadlines, and difficult students while struggling with poor sleep, brain fog, and exhaustion?
What options are there for teachers when they experience visible symptoms in a classroom environment, such as mood swings, spontaneously bursting into tears, hot flashes, or heavy periods?
Some women experience severe symptoms that disrupt their professional life and self-confidence. If they are teased, dismissed, or ignored, teachers are likely to struggle to regulate their emotions and cope with the stressors they face. At best, they will take time off from work; at worst, teachers will resign early (typically at age 54 in Australia).
And if we aren't addressing the stigma and other challenges associated with menopause, what message are we sending to school-aged girls who are starting to menstruate and facing many of the same challenges?
Can the teaching profession afford to lose so many years of highly skilled and knowledgeable teachers who have devoted their lives to this career - and for the young women (and men) they teach?
Opportunities to Support Teachers Through Menopause
Establish support systems to help women feel heard, understood, and cope better.
If we want to support teachers better through menopause so they can stay well and at work, let's look at what's working elsewhere, consider how we can leverage existing frameworks, and decide what we can do better.
Given that stress, menopausal women are likely to be confused, exhausted, feel isolated, and not cope well, we need to look at ways to:
Educate teachers, leaders, and students to raise awareness, open the conversation, reduce stigma, and facilitate better support and empathy.
Establish support systems to help women feel heard, understood, and cope better.
Rework or establish new policies to include flexible leave allowances.
Make reasonable adjustments, e.g., working from home, shorter days, toilet breaks, providing showers, providing in-room temperature control, and supplying sanitary products.
Like psychosocial hazards, reasonable workplace adjustments for menopause are likely to be mandated in Australia at some point.
By addressing the impact of menopause on teachers and providing better support, we can retain valuable teaching talent, promote a more inclusive and understanding school environment, and ensure our educators can continue to make a positive difference in the lives of students.
References/Citations
(2021) Infographic: Teacher age and gender over the years. Available at: https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1199&context=teacher_graphics (Accessed: 30 May 2024).
Carroll, A. et al. (2022) Teacher stress and burnout in Australia: Examining the role of intrapersonal and environmental factors - social psychology of Education, SpringerLink. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11218-022-09686-7 (Accessed: 30 May 2024).
Rebecca J. Collie, Scientia Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Caroline F. Mansfield, Executive Dean (2022) Teachers’ stress isn’t just an individual thing – it’s about their schools too, The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/teachers-stress-isnt-just-an-individual-thing-its-about-their-schools-too-183451 (Accessed: 30 May 2024).
Flohm, A. (2023) Risky business: Workload and injury, NSW Teachers Federation. Available at: https://www.nswtf.org.au/news/2022/11/08/risky-business-workload-and-injury/ (Accessed: 30 May 2024).
ACARA (2023) National Report on Schooling in Australia - Staff Numbers, Staff numbers. Available at: https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/staff-numbers#:~:text=In%20Australia%20in%202023%3A,4%2C427%20(1.4%25)%20from%202022. (Accessed: 30 May 2024).
Driving the change: Menopause and the workplace: Research (2021) Circle In. Available at: https://circlein.com/research-and-guides/menopause-at-work/ (Accessed: 30 May 2024).
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