The Menstrual Leave Policy's Effectiveness

Focuses on Gender Equity in The Workplace.

Author: Dwi Tampubolon
 Menstrual Leave Policy History

Established by some Russian Indonesia established the

Companies, lasted for 5 years only menstrual leave policy in UU
due to the aftermath of No.12/1948 and was supported in
employability UU No. 1/1951 about employment.

1947 1953

1920s 1948
Japan make the menstrual leave South Korea established its
as a national law. menstrual leave policy for the first
time
 Past Present
● During war: Men go to war and ● Gender justice faced by
women take the responsibility to women in the workplace.
work
● Stigma and taboo about
● After war: men soldiers returned
menstruation
to the workforce; national
● Many women suffer
fertility due to the world war’s
population lost was raised, which
menstrual
made women take a couple of pain/dysmenorrhea are
days during menstruation “in the treated unequally.
interest of national fertility” and
allowed them to “reproduced”
● Menstrual leave policy was seen
as a “motherhood” protectionist
policy as this will secure the the
women to fulfil their mother
role.
 Gap
● Society starts to speak up about bringing the menstrual leave policy due to the
issue faced in the present, however, most of the governments in some countries
reject it like Russian (the government sees that it is incorrect) and the United
Kingdom (It is already a part of employment and the Equality Act 2010 about
disability).
● Nevertheless, there are some countries that take the menstrual leave policy
seriously and establish it as a national policy such as, Japan, Indonesia, South
Korea, Hainan; China, Taiwan, Hubei; China, Anhui; China and others.
● It is believed that menstrual leave policy will bring gender equity, justice and help
women worker achieve their menstrual health in the workplace. On the other hand,
some believe that instead of bringing gender equity, this will raise a discrimination
for women workers.
 Research Aims and Objectives
Research Aim:

Asses the menstrual leave policy effectiveness that focus on gender equity in
the workplace.

Objectives:

1. A thematic analysis of the evidence on the menstrual leave policy impacts

in the countries with the official menstrual leave law
2. Draw the implications of menstrual leave application in countries that do
not have an official leave law.
 Methodology of Literature Review
1. Search Strategy 2. Search Outcomes

1. Academic Literature
a. Inclusion
i. Study that has been published within 5 years
(2018 - 2022).
ii. Journals that only use English.
iii.Article only for resource type.
iv. Full text available.
b. Exclusion
i. The articles that do not have menstrual leave
policy - related topics in both title and abstract.
ii. The articles that do not discuss the gender issues
iii. The articles that do not mention the country of
study
iv. Articles that cannot be accessed.
2. Grey Literature
Such as thesis, dissertation, government
documents, conference papers, on going
research, newsletter, and reports.
 3. Method used for Critical Appraisal
Critical appraisal skill for Quantitative research –
CASP Tools from CEBM - Qualitative Research Observational study

No. Questions - Critical Appraisal for Qualitative Research No. Questions

1 Does the paper explain an important clinical issue and is the question explicitly 1 Was an obviously focused problem addressed and was a proper type of study
formulated? used?

2. Was a qualitative approach appropriate? 2 Were participator recruited in an appropriate manner?

3. Was the sampling strategy appropriate for the approach? 3 Was the exposure quantified in a legitimate and reliable manner?

4. What were the data collection methods? 4 Were confounding factors recognized and considered?

5. How were data analysed and how were these checked?

5 Were the results measured in a valid and trusted manner?

6. Is the researcher’s position described?

6 Was follow-up complete and long enough for outcomes to be monitored?
7. What were the results?

8. Do the results make sense? Critical Appraisal for Grey Literature

9. Are the conclusions drawn justified by the results?
It is appraised by its checklist with several indicators, namely,
Authority, Accuracy, Coverage, Objectivity, Date, and
10. Are the finding transferable to other clinical settings? Significance, which were subsequently abbreviated into the
AACODS checklist
 4. Thematic Analysis

● Uses various types of data (article, newspaper, etc.) and find the messages
in it
● It gives thorough understanding of the messages in various kind of contexts
● The process (Braun and Clarke, 2008):
○ Data Familiarization
○ Generate the initial codes
○ Themes searching
○ Themes review
○ Define and name the themes
○ Report production
 5. Search Limitation

● This study has to comprehend within three months → dissertation

planning and step-by-step timetable
● It is hard to find a proper literature → specific keyword used instead of
Boolean Operator, use several database such as ProQuest, Scopus and
PubMed.
● Only done by one researcher → involves the academic librarian and
supervisor.
 Findings
1. Study Characteristic 2. Quality Appraisal of the Literature

1.Academic Literature All of papers (qualitative,

a. 2 quantitative research → India quantitative and grey literature
b. 2 qualitative research → The U.S and
India
fulfilled the satisfactory of all
c. 1 policy paper → Australia criteria.
2.Media Analysis / Grey Literature
a. 38 grey literature → India
b. 11 news articles → The U.S,
Australia, Egypt, Indonesia,
Australia, Canada, Spain, The
U.K,
 Results of the thematic analysis
Academic literature
● “Results imply that both men and women see fairness in the
policy, perceived positive outcomes, and they stated that they’d
support the policy equally, which is likely to result in greater
support in implementation stages” (Marathe and Raj, 2020, p.95)
● “Therefore, if such women-centric policies for women are not
introduced at Pan-India level, proper working conditions or
equality to the women employees won't be availed”
(Bhattacharya, Kumar and Pattnaik, 2021, p.1)
● “Despite the many positive responses to the policy, many
participants were concerned about the unfairness of menstrual
leave” (Barnack-Tavlaris et al., 2019, p.1369).
Grey literature
●“The result is that women feel empowered, not embarrassed, and
shamed. Women feel really nourished, more productive, and have
a greater sense of responsibility to their organisation because
they feel cared for” (Astrup, 2018, p.16).
●“Any policy that is formulated for the benefit of one gender is a
step towards the betterment of the workspace as a whole” (Khan,
2020).
●“Paid menstrual leave would increase gender polarity at work.
Competitive male counterparts may create a hostile social
atmosphere for women who avail of period leave” (Shnan, 2017).
 Countries mentioned on the papers:

● India (specifically in Bihar)*

Positive ● Indonesia*
14
outcome ● The United Kingdom**
● The United States**
● Australia
● Canada
Themes Negative 11 ● Egypt
outcome
● Spain***
● German
● Latin America
The company 29
involvement
*Countries that has the official law by government
**The government in these countries believe that the policy is
unnecessary
***The government is considering it to be an official law
 Discussion
1. The evidence on the menstrual leave policy
impacts in countries that have the official
menstrual leave law
● India
Positive outcomes:
“one of the employees in the Bihar Social Welfare Department
is allowed by her Head of Department (HoD) to take leave,
and she manages to empower her other female colleagues to
use this right; nevertheless, one of her male colleagues implies
with a mocking tone that women have another privilege”
Johri(2020).
● Indonesia
Negative outcomes:
“a civil servant in Indonesia who works in a government
agency in Bogor is not allowed to take leave under the pretext
of being lazy by her supervisor” (Azwar, 2021).
2. The implications of menstrual leave
application in countries that do not have the
official menstrual leave law
Regardless of the inexistence of legal menstrual leave policy in
those countries, some companies initiate applying this policy.
● The United Kingdom
Company involvement:
UK Government rejected a menstrual leave petition; UK Company
(Coexist) embarked on the menstrual leave due to their employee
who suffers from dysmenorrhoea.
● Australia
Company involvement:
The Australian government have not responded to the menstrual
leave policy under the Fair Work Act 2009 yet; Victorian Women’s
Trust offer the menstrual leave to its employees.
● The United States
Company involvement:
The U.S government concerns on other programs instead of
menstrual leave policy; a company named Chani offers a menstrual
leave for their employees who have uterus.
And more indescribable implications …
3. Menstrual leave policy effectiveness focus
on gender equity in the workplace
●The policy is less effective due to non-uniform
results of the positive and negative impact in both
countries that have the policy and not.
●The gender equity expected from the policy is not
achieved yet in both categories of countries.
●It is assumed that the discrepancy and difficulty of
achieving the gender equity is due to menstrual
leave policy being a women-centred policy (Bundale,
2021).
●According to policy frame of gender equity, the
women-centred policy depicts women as individuals
who are less fortunate than men and results in
failure of gender equity.
●Other women-centred policies results in protests are
maternal leave, women’s human rights, and women’s
empowerment.
●Although, there is an enlightenment for this policy to
be like maternal leave; approved in society and can
be used to promote sexual health as well as reduce
the taboos about menstruation.
4. Strength, limitation of study and direction
for the next research
●Strength
○ Used standard yet trustworthy methodology and
analysis (thematic analysis in literature).
○ Used grey literature results in numerous articles
●Limitation
○ Time limit
○ Variety of articles
○ Bias on the coding as it was only one researcher
●Direction
○ Consider doing the evaluation of the
government that has implemented the policy as
this menstrual leave policy is often to be
politicised by the politician candidate during the
campaign
○ Need more investigation in the countries that
have the official law
○ Evaluation on the company whether it is
implemented well or not
○ Involved the employees who take the leave
○ Adequate duration for research using better
method such as cross-sectional or cohort
approach
 Conclusion

Reflecting on all of the outcomes of the policy, the menstrual leave policy is
not the best solution to help the menstruator who experiences period pain
regularly and it is not an effective way to achieve gender equity in the
workplace. Alternatively, the work-from-home setting or creating a
comfortable work environment to allow the menstruator to rest is more
suitable solution as the work-from-home setting has been known publicly and
is well-accepted by both women and men employees.
 Implication
Global Health Policy:
The menstrual leave policy may negatively impact
not only gender equity but women’s health.
Further, this discrimination will influence the
menstruator not to be aware of their health and
not to go to seek a health practitioner as they will
be mistreated for taking the leave.
Therefore, the correct understanding and
implementation of gender equity must be
educated at various levels, so that public can
understand the concept of gender equity. Thus,
when regulation aimed at achieving gender
equity are introduced, these can be well received
by the community and maximise the
implementation of the policy.
Midwifery:
Less of sexual health and health reproduction
education from health sector affect these taboos and
stigmas in society that menstruation is not crucial,
dysmenorrhoea is normal and minority of the
healthcare practitioner may say “the pain is just in
your head”.
Therefore, as a healthcare practitioner (midwives)
who closely involved with sexual and reproductive
health, it is encouraged that sexual and reproductive
health is continuously promoted not only to youth
but adults to reduce the taboos and stigma.
Healthcare practitioner should accept with an open
hand whenever someone complain about their
menstrual health and their sexual as well as
reproduction health. PROMOTE AND PREVENT!
Thank you
📧 dwi.tampubolon@gmail.com