Globally, one in ten women suffers from menstrual pain (also known as "dysmenorrhoea") severe enough to interfere with their daily activities.
Written by Cyrielle Agut
Employment and Tax Lawyer
Dr Enrique Oyarzún, of the Hospital of the Catholic University of Chile, notes that between 10% and 15% of women experience limitations in carrying out their everyday activities.
In 10% of cases, the discomfort is severe enough to cause absenteeism from work.
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1. ORIGINS OF MENSTRUAL LEAVE
Many countries, including China, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea, have been recognising and protecting this measure for many years.
Looking at the chronology: Japan first introduced menstrual leave in 1947; in South Korea, female workers have been entitled to one day of rest per month since 2001; in 2014, Taiwan amended its legislation to grant one day of rest per month plus three additional days at half pay; and Indonesia grants the right to two days of menstrual leave per month.
Western countries are increasingly moving towards recognising and promoting the right to menstrual leave for female workers — both to address the physical hardship involved and to accommodate the temporary reduction in productivity that their physical condition may cause.
2. GIRONA CITY COUNCIL: A PIONEER IN SPAIN ON MENSTRUAL LEAVE
In Europe, Italy drafted a non-recoupable menstrual leave law in 2017, but it did not pass.
In this context, Girona can be considered a European pioneer on this issue. Female employees of this public authority will be entitled to a flexible leave arrangement of eight hours per month, to be made up within a three-month period, for employees who experience abdominal and/or pelvic pain and other menstruation-related symptoms during this time. The trade union group behind the proposal justified it on the straightforward basis that women had been using their rest days or annual leave to cover absences caused by menstrual pain.
The fact that these hours are recoupable is the key innovation of this measure, as it allows the employee to justify her absence from work without having to apply for temporary disability (IT) and suffer a reduction in her pay.
It is worth noting that this leave would currently exist solely and exclusively for employment relationships arising from contracts with Public Administrations, and it remains to be seen whether the Government intends to legislate and formally introduce menstrual leave into the Workers' Statute.
3. KEY FIGURES ON WORKPLACE ABSENTEEISM DUE TO MENSTRUATION-RELATED CONDITIONS
The following figures illustrate the scale of workplace absenteeism caused by menstruation-related conditions, based on a study published in the British medical journal BMJ Journals:
- 13.8% of women surveyed said they were unable to go to work during their period.
- Among those who did attend work, 80.7% reported a reduction in productivity.
- 3.4% reported absenteeism during all or almost all of their menstrual cycles, and the average number of days absent due to menstruation — across the 32,748 women surveyed — was 1.3 days per year.
- Only 20.1% of those who chose to take time off told their managers that the reason for their absence was menstrual pain.
The majority of women surveyed acknowledged that they had learned to "live with the pain", despite it affecting their day-to-day working lives.
4. Menstrual leave: a genuine positive discrimination measure?
As employment lawyer Nuria González put it: "If you want to recognise that menstruation is a physical process that can lead to temporary disability (IT), you cannot draw distinctions based on the cause of the physical discomfort — whether that is menstruation or a migraine."
The menstrual leave scheme approved by Girona City Council provides, as noted above, that any hours taken must be made up — whereas temporary disability (IT) leave does not require employees to make up the hours not worked. The mere act of identifying the reason for absence (menstruation) triggers an obligation to recover those hours.
Along similar lines, Ester Rocabayera, National Secretary for Equality at Intersindical CSC, has called on companies to open a negotiation process with a view to making the leave paid, arguing that it is about "having [these hours] available so that employees can be absent without incurring a debt with the company."
In practice — as has been seen in countries such as China and Indonesia — there is a real risk that female workers will not make use of menstrual leave precisely because it is unpaid, whether for financial reasons, because they do not wish to disclose their physiological condition to colleagues, or for other personal reasons.
5. MENSTRUAL LEAVE AS A POSSIBLE MEASURE WITHIN A company EQUALITY PLAN:
Menstrual leave is a topic that may well arise at an Equality Committee meeting within a company. Find out more at this link, where you can explore all the gender equality options that may be proposed as equality measures:
Link Equality Plan for Companies
At Conesa Legal, we recognise that this issue is closely connected to the fundamental right to equality — and in particular to the legally permitted positive discrimination measures aimed at achieving gender equality.
This is a subject that is beginning to gain traction, and one that is likely to be raised both in the collective bargaining negotiations we handle and in equality plans — and potentially in future legislative developments aimed at recognising and improving women's health, allowing female workers to enjoy a better quality of life.
