Skills Education

What you need to know to support learners and staff

A natural part of life but often not really openly spoken about, menopause can affect physical, emotional, mental, and social well-being.

To coincide with International Women’s Day which is March 8 each year, we are hosting this session on menopause in the learning and work environment.

The aim of the session is to provide content to help you know more about implications and impacts of menopause for students and co-workers (and maybe even yourself!), and identify strategies and resources that can be used as support in the work and learning context.

Hear about:

• Brief explanation and definition of stages of menopause 

• Symptoms of menopause in the context of work and learning

• Demographics and statistics of menopause in the work and learning space

• Impacts on cognitive and emotional function - and how this can impact learning and work, and what you can do to help

• Possible reasonable adjustments and supports for menopause in the workplace and learning environments

• Contrasting cultural attitudes and policies that support and do not support menopause in the workplace

• Managerial skills that support menopause in the work and learning space

• Where to get more information

Of interest, here are a couple of facts:

• Over half of the VET workforce is female (57.2%)1

• The average age of workers in the VET workforce is 47.3 years old1

• Australia’s population is ageing

• In 2021, 48.2% of the 2.6 million VET students were female (57.2% of the 1.6 million higher education students)2

• In 2023, 49.5% of VET students were female3

• In 2023, the two largest cohorts of VET students by age were 30-39 years old, and 40-49 years old3

• Menopause has been seen as a taboo subject and despite some progress, is still a relatively unspoken-about topic with unwarranted stigma attached

(1 Jobs and Skills Australia (2024) VET Workforce Study; 2 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2023) Higher education, vocational education and training; 3 NCVER (2024) Total VET students and courses 2023)

This means there is a high probability that within your organisation, staff and learners will be impacted.

Ensure you have the vital knowledge to appropriately support students and staff experiencing menopause effects in the learning and working environment!

We encourage you to share this session with colleagues and friends.