Every year on International Women’s Day, we see a spate of companies claiming to support women at work. But are these companies putting their money where their mouths are? We decided to look into this to find out.
To do this, our Adzuna data gurus analysed over 1m job ads advertised on our site in March 2023. We tracked the number of postings promoting perks aimed at women to see if support is really been offered.
Unfortunately, our findings showed a dire need for employers to step up. UK employers are failing to prioritise women in the workplace, with fewer than 3% offering benefits necessary to help them thrive
Overall, only 29,501 of the 1,043,451 job ads available cited perks aimed at retaining women in the workplace and supporting them to thrive. Only 17,638 ads promoted enhanced maternity or parental leave, and just 6,410 postings offered some kind of support with childcare costs (including on site daycare or backup childcare).
Why do benefits like menopause support and menstrual leave matter?
Evidence shows menopause and menstruation are top factors making it harder for women to thrive at work, even leading many to drop out of the workforce.
Despite recent evidence showing 1 in 10 women aged 45-55 leave the workforce due to symptoms of the menopause, only 821 job ads mention menopause support, and of those just 30 postings are offering paid HRT therapy.
Shockingly, only 5 UK job ads offered menstrual leave. Research by YouGov has found nearly half of Brits are in favour of the introduction of menstrual leave legislation, and 40% of women said they regularly get period pain bad enough that it affects their ability to work.
Some countries are waking up to the huge negative impact this has on women in the workplace: Spain has recently introduced legislation allowing three days per month of state-paid for menstrual leave for those with incapacitating periods.
But we feel more needs to be done. Women shouldn’t need to suffer in silence; employers need to step up, introduce open dialogues around these topics and add more flexibility for women juggling their health with work. Not only this, keeping women in the workplace is key to filling skill gaps, so introducing benefits that help attract, support and ultimately retain women makes sense from a business as well as a societal perspective.
Table 1: Job ads supporting women in the workplace, March 2023
| Benefit | Total job ads promoting perk |
|---|---|
| Enhanced parental/ maternity leave | 17,638 |
| Childcare support (vouchers/ emergency childcare/ on-site nursery) | 6,410 |
| Adoption leave | 3,891 |
| Menopause support (including paid HRT treatment) | 821 |
| Surrogacy leave | 349 |
| Pregnancy loss leave | 336 |
| Fertility benefits (including IVF support or leave/ egg freezing) | 51 |
| Menstrual leave | 5 |
| TOTAL | 29,501 |
Fertility benefits suffering
Fertility benefits such as egg freezing and IVF support are also rare, with just 51 job ads mentioning these types of perks. LinkedIn was one of the first companies to offer UK its staff these benefits, covering up to £21,000 towards IVF (around £5,000 per cycle) or adoption costs from 2019, and following in the steps of Facebook, Google and Apple in the US. But with hiring in large tech companies currently depressed, women seeking employers offering fertility benefits are facing limited options.
By comparison, popular perks including duvet days (619 job ads), unlimited holiday (953 ads) and free gym membership (3,912 ads) continue to be offered by many employers.
Instead of duvet days or free gym membership, employers need to focus on benefits that support female employees.
Which UK companies are supporting women?
We also wanted to highlight the companies that are doing a great job and offering support to help their female employees succeed.
Neobank Monzo has introduced pregnancy loss leave of up to 10 additional days leave, including but not limited to stillbirth, miscarriage, and abortion.
Two global investment banks – JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank – offer back-up childcare to their employees.
We also found a handful of companies offering menopause support, or fertility benefits.
Table 2: Employers offering workplace perks supporting women
| Benefit | Company |
|---|---|
| Menstrual leave | Hertility |
| Paid HRT treatment | Gi Group |
| Backup childcare | JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank |
| Fertility Benefits | Salesforce, Kindbody |
| Menopause friendly | Mamas & Papas, Anchor Trust, Stonewater |
| Pregnancy Loss Leave | Monzo |
If you’re in the market for a new job, looking for companies offering perks and benefits that can support you is one way to narrow down your search. Try using our advanced search to surface roles that could suit your lifestyle on Adzuna.
Read more: The 7 best perks for women in the workplace