Gender, Behavior and Decision-Making seminar Avril 2025

Gabriella Conti is a Professor in Economics in the Department of Economics and in the Social Research Institute at University College London; and Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and at IZA Bonn. Her research areas of interest are health economics, the economics of human development, and biology and economics. Her research draws on both the biomedical and the social sciences with the aim of understanding the developmental origins of health inequalities, the role of child development as input in the production of lifecycle health and the behavioral and biological pathways through which early life shocks and policies affect well-being throughout the lifecourse.

Abstract 

The motherhood penalty is well-documented, but what happens at the other end of the reproductive spectrum? Menopause—a transition often marked by debilitating physical and psychological symptoms—also entails substantial costs. Using population-wide Norwegian and Swedish data and quasi-experimental methods, we show that a menopause diagnosis leads to lasting drops in earnings and employment, alongside greater reliance on social transfers. The impact is especially severe for women with lower socioeconomic status. Increasing access to menopause-related health care can help offset these losses. Our findings reveal the hidden economic toll of menopause and the potential gains from better support policies.