Prioritizing Women’s Health in the Workplace

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The workplace is a crucible. Professional needs intersect with personal wellness. Working women are often required to wear multiple hats simultaneously. As an employee, caregiver, mentor, friend, neighbor, partner, parent, relative, women must work hard to strike a balance. These roles are accompanied by other unique challenges women face, including societal pressures, gender bias and organizational structure, which can increase demands on their overall health and wellbeing.

Women’s experience at work also has great potential to impact their health given that nearly half of the health burden affects women in their working years, according to a 2024 study by the McKinsey Health Institute. This often has an impact on their ability to earn money and support themselves and their families.

With five generations of women in the workforce, companies must address a variety of needs. For example, Gen Z and millennial women may seek benefits related to fertility while Gen X and baby boomer women look for benefits around caregiving for aging family members. These needs can affect the course of a woman’s career and where they decide to work, which is why organizations need to actively support women’s wellbeing to attract and retain talent.

Here are three ways employers can consider prioritizing women’s health in the workplace.

1. Improve Fertility Benefits and Support Reproductive Rights
   The fertility journey can be stressful, costly and time consuming. Employers can evaluate their benefits to be sure that women do not face high out-of-pocket costs and offer meaningful maternal benefits. Companies can also collaborate with vendors that support women’s reproductive health from pregnancy to parenthood.

2. Increase Support for Caregivers
   Women are typically the designated caregiver and spend more time in that role than their male counterparts. They are included in the “sandwich generation” where care is needed for both children and aging parents. These responsibilities can increase stress and mental health needs among women, resulting in presenteeism or absenteeism and potentially lead to higher wage gaps. Women are attracted to roles that offer flexibility and support from employers such as offering an employee assistance program.

3. Provide Career Advancement Opportunities in the Workplace
   Historically, women’s careers do not advance as quickly as men’s, leading to fewer women in middle management and executive leadership. Employers can take many actions to support their women talent. For example, leadership can create targeted roadmaps showing the forecasted trajectory of their valued women employees and offer skill-building that would benefit certain individuals.

According to Harvard Business Review, companies that offer comprehensive support for women’s health have higher productivity, better retention of women employees, and most importantly, they help improve health outcomes for women.

Investment in women’s health results in a healthier population overall.