The career cost nobody budgets for, and the companies finally pricing it in
Roughly one in three women in management or executive positions has thought about walking away from her job because of menopause symptoms. The figure is 34%, drawn from a 2025 survey by WebMD Health Services, and few companies in the Sacramento region or anywhere else track it on their planning sheets.
Here is the reason this subject is worth your focus at this moment.
For most women, the onset of menopause arrives somewhere between 45 and 55, the very years they are typically moving into top executive roles. The period when an organization draws the most value from a woman executive is also when she may be coping with a hot flash during a board presentation, running on three hours of sleep ahead of an 8 a.m. review, or losing a word mid-sentence.
The same research also found that 45% of women in leadership hide what they are going through at their jobs. Per the 2025 Women @ Work report from Deloitte, roughly a third (36%) of women who have symptoms are putting up with strong, persistent discomfort and getting no real relief. Google searches for "perimenopause" have climbed roughly 740%, according to the trend-watching site Exploding Topics. Conversations about this subject are overdue. Most company policies, by and large, stay silent on it.
Sources of the data
In 2025, WebMD Health Services surveyed employed women about the kind of menopause support they receive and how it shapes their work. Responses for the Deloitte study were collected from 7,500 women living in 15 different nations. Neither survey reaches every member of the population, and both draw on women reporting their own experiences. Even so, the results agree with one another and send the same message: senior women are leaving, or weighing a departure, for a reason they have felt pressured to stay quiet about.
How one ordinary workday in Sacramento might unfold
Picture a 51-year-old chief operating officer in the Sacramento region preparing for her quarterly review. She managed to sleep from 1 to 4 a.m. Already she has turned the office thermostat down twice, and she knows she will need to again. In the middle of the meeting, the word "amortization" slips from her grasp, and for four painful seconds she sits there blank in front of the CFO. No one comments. All afternoon she worries that someone saw, and through the rest of the quarter she questions whether she can still handle the role.
She absolutely can still handle it. Still, statistically speaking, she belongs to the one-third of women in her position who have thought about walking away.
Why it matters to you
If symptoms are disrupting your life, keeping quiet about them is the option that will cost you the most. The next most expensive is disclosing far more than the situation calls for to someone who has no need to know. The better route sits in between: precise, limited, and confident.
SHORT What to request
Ask for flexibility around early meetings. A request along the lines of: "I'm dealing with a health issue and would like to avoid 8 a.m. start times for the next few months." A diagnosis is not required to make that request, and a manager who demands one has shown you something important about the culture you work in.
Ask for control over the temperature in your space, a confidential contact in HR, and a review of benefits that addresses menopause the same way they address maternity. If you set policy for others, make these changes before anyone has to ask. The loss of a senior leader carries a price far beyond what a desk fan and a line in the handbook could ever make up for.
Build relationships with women a few years further along in their careers than you. They can point you to the right doctor, the symptom worth treating first, and the manager worth confiding in. That peer network is a large part of why groups like this chapter exist, whether you meet through the Sacramento Metro Chamber, a local CREW Sacramento gathering, or a NAWBO Sacramento Valley event.
What would it take for you to finally speak that word aloud at your job?