AIBU to wonder where the women over 50 are in the workforce?

[Waferbiscuit]

I'm over 50 and I've noticed a very obvious trend of women leaving the workforce at around my age. Throughout my 40s I saw many women my age move to part-time, but they were still visible. Now I go into meetings (I attends lots of cross-org plus city-wide/region-wide meetings) and I never see women my age or older.

Anecdotally the four women my age who I worked alongside have all left their roles to do a bit of consultancy work or stop working altogether.

Is it just my sector or is this trend something other people are seeing in their line of work? Are women at 50 leaving the workforce because of caring responsibilities? Of course not all women have caring responsibilities so are they leaving because their other half (if they have a partner) makes more money? Or is the workforce just breaking people, so by 50 women stand up and say 'I've had enough' ??? Genuinely curious.

I'm 50 and have just increased my hours to nearly full time.

Most of the women at our firm (solicitors) are over 50 and in fact the last 2 people to be taken on were over 60.

I do think we are unusual though as we have a male and a female partner and out of 20 of us staff there are only 4 men!

I expect it depends on your profession as in law, experience is valued, whereas my DH is a teacher and finds the exact opposite is the case.

@AnFiadhRua

Thanks Hopefully Ill be relatively unaffected 🤞. I cant afford to be floored by menopause.

In which case I would start planing now. I wish that I had realised that the symptoms I was experiencing 10 years ago were related to the menopause. In fact I wish I had even recognised them as symptoms of something .

There’s lots more info out there now. I had had a trouble free gynae history , periods ridiculously regular and not especially painful or heavy, relatively trouble free births, there was no reason to think I would suffer or how. My menopause is middling the main problem was the crippling anxiety and brain fog and the fatigue due to insomnia. The flushes are awful but I can deal with those.

What sort of things can i do to prepare myself? Im pretty strictly low carb (but not keto) and with rice, bread, pasta etc out of the frame it forces me to eat more veg and fish and nuts. I am in a cs job, i have savings but i want to use them to lift the house a little after kids leave home. If they do. I check in with a pelvic floor clinic once a year. Uptodate with smears. Have a lovely women's clinic i go to instead of gp. On pill back to back for heavy periods and thats sorted now.

Is there anything else i can do?

I am aware that if i went up a grade through an external competition id be back on probation for a year, but if i went up a grade internally i would not be back on probation.

I went for external and internal competitions but unlike younger women the issue of being back on probation was on my mind as a factor. Other younger people just "know" theyd pass probation.

But i know that it only takes one covert scapegoating narc to project all of their worst fears on to you and you're branded dotty

I think I would research symptoms , research HRT , find out your GPs attitude to HRT , some are more interested and accommodating than others . I had regular periods until 52 and thought I had no symptoms. Then suddenly out of the blue with no warning as far as I could see , the hot flushes struck literally almost hourly. It’s not just the physical discomfort is the fact that they are distracting. HRT has reduced these and helped with other symptoms but the more I researched the more I realised that there had definitely been warning signs.

The majority of women in my organisation (charity) are over 50, and a couple in their 30s. I'm 57 and will be retiring early-ish. Like a PP poster said, I don't have a mortgage, have a decent pension pot, and think there's more to life than work (however rewarding my job is).

I don’t think you can do much to prepare yourself for the menopause.

It just happens and affects every person differently. Basically in biological terms we’re not needed anymore.

I suppose there’s the rub - the split between women who still have a mortgage at, say, 60 and are therefore forced to work (often due to divorce perhaps?) and those who can afford to choose whether or not to retire early.

@StaplesCorner

I suppose there’s the rub - the split between women who still have a mortgage at, say, 60 and are therefore forced to work (often due to divorce perhaps?) and those who can afford to choose whether or not to retire early.

That's me. We were mortgage free when we got divorced. I bought the fucker him out of the home so took a mortgage on 1/2 the value.

I should be able to overpay in the coming years, but I absolutely cannot consider retiring. Fortunately, I love my job so it's fine.

I too have a great job @TheOrigRights but I struggle to do it - I accept though I might be in the minority here as many women are in senior roles at this stage of their life and my (female) boss is 76. But I am very forgetful and can't easily deal with new technology; my practice in my profession feels stale and old, younger people are clearly more capable and its embarrassing. But like you, I will have to keep going, like it or not.

I'm in financial services and have just returned to the workplace (at 41) after a 9-year break. Definitely hoping to still be here into my 50s and beyond! I'm finding there is plenty of support for accelerating my career as part of a minority group and also quite a bit of support for women going through the menopause.

I'm 55, DH is 59 and we're winding down to retirement, which we can just about manage financially. I agree with who ever said you just re-evaluate your life. I think when you reach the stage of wanting to tell everyone at work to fuck off it really is time to consider your options 😄

Early 50s, senior role, plenty of other older women in senior positions where I work.

As several people have said, age/experience aren’t valued very much nowadays in many schools. This is down to budgets being so squeezed and when heads have the option of either two new teachers on £24k or one with 20 years under their belt on £41k, they go for the option that covers most classes.

I know of lots over 50 (mostly women) teachers who have been managed out because their teaching, despite being consistently good/outstanding for their whole career, is somehow inexplicably found to be suddenly poor. They are then placed on a support plan or capability meaning that members of SLT are sent into them on a weekly basis with a clipboard to watch them, check their planning and do book scrutinies. It is very easy to find ‘something’ you don’t like if you are in someone’s classroom continually looking for fault. Even if they aren’t ultimately sacked, their lives are made so miserable that they feel they have no option but to leave, for their own mental well-being

Does this happen in the NHS or any other sectors as well?

My mother is 53. She's a senior in a government place, full time. She doesn't like it as much as she used to, but is still fine. She waits for retirement, though

Howshouldibehave, not in my sector, experience is valued and I am respected.

From the outside it almost looks like a teacher is a teacher and so a cheaper one will do ✅ in these organisations.

Whereas a teacher is not the same as a very good outstanding experienced teacher is it.

In my role you wouldn't get there without a decade of experience and additional qualifications.

Sad to read to be honest isn't it.

@AnFiadhRua

What sort of things can i do to prepare myself? Im pretty strictly low carb (but not keto) and with rice, bread, pasta etc out of the frame it forces me to eat more veg and fish and nuts. I am in a cs job, i have savings but i want to use them to lift the house a little after kids leave home. If they do. I check in with a pelvic floor clinic once a year. Uptodate with smears. Have a lovely women's clinic i go to instead of gp. On pill back to back for heavy periods and thats sorted now.

Is there anything else i can do?

I am aware that if i went up a grade through an external competition id be back on probation for a year, but if i went up a grade internally i would not be back on probation.

I went for external and internal competitions but unlike younger women the issue of being back on probation was on my mind as a factor. Other younger people just "know" theyd pass probation.

But i know that it only takes one covert scapegoating narc to project all of their worst fears on to you and you're branded dotty

Don’t drink.

In teaching in my area, you are past it by 45. I know two head teachers aged 30.

From this thread, it seems that is not the case everywhere but there has been a mass reorganisation in the county where I work and nearly everyone over 50 was made redundant. Most of those have not been able to find other employment in teaching, some are on supply or covering a maternity leave but most are doing other things or taking their pensions at 55.

It is a very ageist profession.

Btw menopause has nothing to do with it. It’s more about costly older teachers and more value placed on energy, progression and youth than experience.

I think a lot of the women who work part time after kids to not be 'a kept woman' decide to basically take early retirement.

I think this very much depends on the sector. I'm NHS and we have loads of 50-something women at all levels, all doing an amazing job.