How biology explains the shift in the approach to work among women over 50

On 14 May, I attended an event with great interest, where women’s health and work were discussed with a frankness which, let’s face it, is not exactly the norm in professional settings. The occasion was the event Women’s Health Matters: Bridging the Gap, during which the Women’s Health Impact Report was presented for the first time — a survey carried out by Deloitte in collaboration with the University of Milan and conducted by IPSOS. The discussion covered the menopause, periods, fertility and termination of pregnancy: all issues which, although they affect the bodies of millions of working women every day, have always been taboo, regarded as exclusively private and intimate matters.

A vivid impression that I’m passing on. In the hall, there was a sense of liberation amongst those who had been waiting for this moment for twenty years. There were also numerous men in the audience. I took home a personal realisation from that hall: just how much work and effort it has taken to bring to the world of work the truth that women have a different body to men. Encouraging you to explore this topic further, I took this as my starting point and began to piece together my observations from 20 years’ work in the corporate world – spanning training, assessment, research and surveys – and I have come to the following realisation: there comes a time, often around the age of fifty, when many women stop doing something they have done for decades with commendable consistency: making an effort. Making an effort to be positive at every opportunity.

To find any kind of feedback stimulating. To invest precious energy in team dynamics they know by heart — with their power structures, strategic silences, and the credit that often, inexplicably, ends up being attributed to others. For years they have mediated at home and at work; they have understood, supported and motivated others when no one thought to motivate them. At a certain point, with a clarity that surprises even themselves, a sober realisation sets in: it is time to say ‘enough is enough’. Organisations tend to interpret this moment as a sign of a natural slowdown. An almost relieving confirmation of prejudices they had never quite abandoned. They rarely see it for what it often is: the arrival of a disillusioned realism. And realism, as we know, is often difficult to deal with.

Women’s health — the medical and scientific approach that studies the biological, psychological and social differences between the sexes — now offers further perspectives that help to explain this transition. And Gallup’s engagement trends translate this into figures that companies often fail to fully grasp. For decades, women have shouldered a disproportionate share of the emotional labour within organisations. Not because they had enthusiastically chosen to do so, but because biology and a certain not inconsiderable cultural pressure had equipped them well for the task.

Firstly, due to the heightened presence of oxytocin – the hormone that regulates interpersonal trust, prosocial motivation, the ability to form coalitions, and the response to relational stress. To put it provocatively, I would describe this as: the neurobiological basis of everything that is referred to in organisations as ‘soft skills’ – a term which, by its very name, betrays just how secondary it is considered to be. In women, its production is closely intertwined with oestrogen: the latter enhances oxytocin receptors, amplifying their effects. With the onset of the menopause, the drop in oestrogen significantly reduces the responsiveness of the entire system. The consequences are tangible: greater difficulty in tolerating highly conflictual environments, a reduced inclination to invest energy in dynamics perceived as unsafe or non-reciprocal, and a reduced willingness to put oneself forward in judgemental hierarchical contexts. The scientific literature refers to this shift from tend-and-befriend to relational selectivity. Those directly affected refer to it, quite simply, as having stopped trying. In an environment designed around masculine models of competition and stress resilience, this biological change becomes a disadvantage not because women perform less well, but because the environment was not designed with them in mind to begin with.