From Stigma to Support: Exploring Perceptions of Menstrual Leave Policies in European Workplaces

ABSTRACT Menstrual leave is an emerging reproductive health organizational policy gaining attention in Europe but research remains limited. Drawing on 45 semi‐structured interviews with menstruating and nonmenstruating workers in Croatia, Germany, and Italy, we applied thematic analysis to explore workplace perceptions of menstruation and menstrual leave policies (MLPs). We found that menstruation was widely positioned as taboo in the workplace, with participants both experiencing and anticipating stigma. Menstruating was associated with incompetence, emotional instability, and unprofessionalism—as contradictory to ideal worker norms and expectations. Although participants could identify and acknowledge potential benefits of MLPs, they also expressed reluctance and even women participants felt reticent. In particular, women participants would refrain from using them and were concerned about misuse. Our research contributes to work and organizational psychology by highlighting how ideal worker norms perpetuate menstrual stigma which in turn enables the stigmatization of menstrual leave policies. Interventions that align with diffusion of innovations theory could increase awareness of menstruation and decrease menstrual stigma in the workplace to prepare workplaces before implementing menstrual leave policies.