(Charlie Ross/ Yahoo Life) — Last week Spain became the first country in Europe to entitle workers to paid menstrual leave, meaning that workers can take time off work for painful symptoms from their period.
The US and the UK don’t currently offer this benefit as standard, but we hope that more governments will take inspiration from Spain—as well as Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, and Zambia—in accommodating the impact of periods on our health.
Studies have found that workplaces’ ignoring the impact of periods on an employee affects productivity considerably, as well. Research shows that people who menstruate tend to work through their period pain, and it makes them less productive. For example, a 2019 Dutch survey of 32,748 women found that this presenteeism during painful, exhausting, or heavy periods accounted for nine days of lost productivity per person, per year. (…)