Menstruation’s Effects on Work: A Resource Perspective

How menstruation affects individual work outcomes is not well understood. Given that menstruation presents a variety of physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms, it is important to understand how this bodily process influences worker behaviors and respective work outcomes. The purpose of this study is to examine how menstruation affects women's daily work experiences, predicting that, via the Conservation of Resources theory, women would be more likely to be depleted when menstruating, thus increasing their work withdrawal and decreasing their levels of job satisfaction. We predict that these relationships would be mediated by self-control and affect. Using experience sampling methodology with 96 participants over 30 consecutive days (daily time-points=2650), results indicate that when women experience menstrual bleeding, they experience increased work withdrawal via decreased self-control and decreased job satisfaction via negative affect. The findings of this research speak to the influence of a monthly bodily process nearly half the workforce faces each month. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.