Belinda Steffan
Biographic Data
| ID | 4593576 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Belinda Steffan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Belinda |
| FAMILY NAME | Steffan |
| SIGNATURE | STEFFAN B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3646-0562 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Menopause in the French Workplace
Menopause remains largely invisible in workplace discussions, despite its impact on women's wellbeing and careers. Shaped by norms that prioritize youth, bodily control, and constant productivity, menopause is often treated as a personal health issue rather than an organizational concern. This study examines how menopause is experienced, managed, and contested in French workplaces, a setting where reproductive health remains culturally taboo and …
Towards a sociological imagination of menopause
This article presents the monograph Reimagining Menopause as a sociological response to the heightened public visibility of menopause in the West and the increasing attention it is receiving in the Global South in recent years. Employing C. W. Mills’ concept of the sociological imagination as a lens, the monograph examines how individuals’ and groups’ diverse lived experiences of menopause relate to and interact with contemporary cultural narrati…
The self-care paradox of menopause and yoga in neoliberal spaces
Menopause in many societies is dominated by a persistent narrative of decline, as a natural biological transition that must be managed and controlled. While there is a growing societal conversation around menopause, structural supports are often inconsistent, homogeneous, performance-driven and/or performative leading individuals to engage in self-care. The increasingly popular empowerment narrative of managing one’s own menopause is simultaneous…
Extending working lives and the subjective financial wellbeing of mid-later life workers
Despite a UK policy focus on extending working lives and delaying retirement, the number of workers aged fifty-plus in the workforce has declined post-Covid. The reasons for this decline are not entirely clear. Based on face-to-face interviews with fifty-four UK workers age sixty-plus, this study highlights the important role subjective financial wellbeing plays in the decision-making process regarding retirement timing. Findings show that the cu…
The long shadow of divorce
Divorce is increasingly common and can have a significant impact on later-life work and retirement. However, the lived experience of choice and control around divorce and its financial ramifications is not adequately understood. This article demonstrates how women and men differentially experience divorce as a long-run lifecourse factor, which can impact an individual’s scope for choice and control about working in later life, and how and when to…
Optimising workplace health programmes using organisational culture
Contact centre workers experience disproportionately low physical activity levels and high sedentary behaviour levels, as well as an increased risk of negative occupational health outcomes such as anxiety and depression. Organisational culture factors such as strict work schedules and pressure to maintain productivity often impede the effectiveness of programmes to reduce these health risks. Despite its significance, organisational culture is oft…
Menopause, work and mid‐life
This article investigates how the complexity of life domains of menopause‐aged women creates a paradox of simultaneously challenging the ideal worker stereotype while being caught within it. The empirical setting of menopause at work acts to highlight how work, life, and health pressures are entangled in how women present themselves at work, through varying organizational and societal expectations of being ‘fit for work’. We draw on 80 semi‐struc…
Thinking outside Pandora’s box
Menopause is one of the most distinctive and individualised aspects of health-related gendered ageing at work, which is important as more women than ever before are working through their entire menopause cycle. We turn to the life-span development model of Selection, Optimisation and Compensation (SOC), which has great potential to provide a more nuanced review of adaptive behavioural strategies for potential work-related resource loss owing to m…
Managing menopause at work
This article explores how older women experience and manage menopause at work by asking how female workers construct their work identity around their experiences of menopause at work. Based on qualitative data from 21 women in Edinburgh, UK, findings suggest that women engaged in conflicting behaviors to manage and make sense of their menopausal bodies at work. On the one hand, women engaged in a highly resilient, neoliberal discourse around cont…
Managing menopause at work
This article explores how older women experience and manage menopause at work by asking how female workers construct their work identity around their experiences of menopause at work. Based on qualitative data from 21 women in Edinburgh, UK, findings suggest that women engaged in conflicting behaviors to manage and make sense of their menopausal bodies at work. On the one hand, women engaged in a highly resilient, neoliberal discourse around cont…
Menopause, work and mid‐life
This article investigates how the complexity of life domains of menopause‐aged women creates a paradox of simultaneously challenging the ideal worker stereotype while being caught within it. The empirical setting of menopause at work acts to highlight how work, life, and health pressures are entangled in how women present themselves at work, through varying organizational and societal expectations of being ‘fit for work’. We draw on 80 semi‐struc…
Thinking outside Pandora’s box
Menopause is one of the most distinctive and individualised aspects of health-related gendered ageing at work, which is important as more women than ever before are working through their entire menopause cycle. We turn to the life-span development model of Selection, Optimisation and Compensation (SOC), which has great potential to provide a more nuanced review of adaptive behavioural strategies for potential work-related resource loss owing to m…
Managing menopause at work
This article explores how older women experience and manage menopause at work by asking how female workers construct their work identity around their experiences of menopause at work. Based on qualitative data from 21 women in Edinburgh, UK, findings suggest that women engaged in conflicting behaviors to manage and make sense of their menopausal bodies at work. On the one hand, women engaged in a highly resilient, neoliberal discourse around cont…
Thinking outside Pandora’s box
Menopause is one of the most distinctive and individualised aspects of health-related gendered ageing at work, which is important as more women than ever before are working through their entire menopause cycle. We turn to the life-span development model of Selection, Optimisation and Compensation (SOC), which has great potential to provide a more nuanced review of adaptive behavioural strategies for potential work-related resource loss owing to m…
Menopause, work and mid‐life
This article investigates how the complexity of life domains of menopause‐aged women creates a paradox of simultaneously challenging the ideal worker stereotype while being caught within it. The empirical setting of menopause at work acts to highlight how work, life, and health pressures are entangled in how women present themselves at work, through varying organizational and societal expectations of being ‘fit for work’. We draw on 80 semi‐struc…
Optimising workplace health programmes using organisational culture
Contact centre workers experience disproportionately low physical activity levels and high sedentary behaviour levels, as well as an increased risk of negative occupational health outcomes such as anxiety and depression. Organisational culture factors such as strict work schedules and pressure to maintain productivity often impede the effectiveness of programmes to reduce these health risks. Despite its significance, organisational culture is oft…
Menopause in the French Workplace
Menopause remains largely invisible in workplace discussions, despite its impact on women's wellbeing and careers. Shaped by norms that prioritize youth, bodily control, and constant productivity, menopause is often treated as a personal health issue rather than an organizational concern. This study examines how menopause is experienced, managed, and contested in French workplaces, a setting where reproductive health remains culturally taboo and …
Towards a sociological imagination of menopause
This article presents the monograph Reimagining Menopause as a sociological response to the heightened public visibility of menopause in the West and the increasing attention it is receiving in the Global South in recent years. Employing C. W. Mills’ concept of the sociological imagination as a lens, the monograph examines how individuals’ and groups’ diverse lived experiences of menopause relate to and interact with contemporary cultural narrati…
The self-care paradox of menopause and yoga in neoliberal spaces
Menopause in many societies is dominated by a persistent narrative of decline, as a natural biological transition that must be managed and controlled. While there is a growing societal conversation around menopause, structural supports are often inconsistent, homogeneous, performance-driven and/or performative leading individuals to engage in self-care. The increasingly popular empowerment narrative of managing one’s own menopause is simultaneous…
Extending working lives and the subjective financial wellbeing of mid-later life workers
Despite a UK policy focus on extending working lives and delaying retirement, the number of workers aged fifty-plus in the workforce has declined post-Covid. The reasons for this decline are not entirely clear. Based on face-to-face interviews with fifty-four UK workers age sixty-plus, this study highlights the important role subjective financial wellbeing plays in the decision-making process regarding retirement timing. Findings show that the cu…
The long shadow of divorce
Divorce is increasingly common and can have a significant impact on later-life work and retirement. However, the lived experience of choice and control around divorce and its financial ramifications is not adequately understood. This article demonstrates how women and men differentially experience divorce as a long-run lifecourse factor, which can impact an individual’s scope for choice and control about working in later life, and how and when to…
Menopause (6 works) · Medicine (4 works) · Menopause: Health Impacts and Treatments (4 works) · Engineering (3 works) · Psychology (3 works) · Social Psychology (3 works) · Social Psychology (3 works) · Work (physics (3 works) · Gender Diversity and Inequality (2 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (2 works)