Table of Diversity Weekly: DEI This Week 3/11

Check out this post for the latest DEI news this week.

Menopause Gets Its Moment -Time Magazine

"Most people who menstruate experience symptoms including hot flashes, brain fog, and changes to mood, sleep, and sexual function in the years before they hit menopause, which is defined as the point in time a year after their last period. But that premenopausal transition, which typically begins between the ages of 45 and 55 and can last years, is so rarely discussed in society- and at the doctor's office- that people often know nearly nothing about it in advance. One 2023 study of postmenopausal women found that almost none of them learned about menopause in school, and about half 'did not feel informed at all' about the life stage.

But that could be changing, as both the medical and business worlds get serious about the needs of the more than 1 million people in the U.S. who reach menopause every year -and the potential market they represent. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023 approved Astellas Pharma's drug to treat menopausal hot flashes, and pharmaceutical giant Bayer is currently developing a similar medication. Some companies are beginning to offer menopause benefits to their employees. Lawmakers have pushed for more research on menopause. And a flurry of menopause-focused startups have launched in recent years to supplement traditional care, since studies suggest a significant portion of people going through menopause are not treated."

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The Unexpected Upside of an Aging Workforce -Fortune

"The graying of the U.S. workforce is gaining momentum. A Pew Research survey found nearly a fifth of Americans age 65 and older were employed in 2023, nearly double the three decades prior. Employees 55 and older will constitute over a quarter of the global workforce by 2031, according to an analysis from Bain & Co. last year.

This marks an unprecedented time for most workplaces, where the presence of retirement-age workers used to be rare. However, given the current U.S. labor shortage, it could be a win-win for those older workers and their employers alike. As the pool of older workers grows, so does the evidence that their presence on multigenerational teams can boost a company's bottom line, foster innovation, and help combat widespread burnout. In the war for talent, employers must implement novel ways to integrate and engage both longtime and new cohorts of experience workers.

For practical and professional reasons, adults are working longer. For some, the financial impact of caregiving and the need for a steady paycheck to support their longer, healthier life spans have made traditional retirement impossible. 'We're having to try and invent a life that hasn't been lived before,' says John Beard, director of the International Longevity Center-USE and professor at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center.

Other older Americans continue to work to maintain social connections, for a sense of purpose, or to remain a career in a novel decade of opportunity- like Elizabeth White, author of 55, Underemployed, and Faking Normal. She joined a startup incubator at age 68 and became a founder at 70. 'I think that the days of retirement being a one-time, one-way exit and then you're done are over,' she tells Fortune."

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New CDC campaign asks health care leaders to take responsibility for reducing burnout. -STAT

"Often, workplace conversations about burnout put the onus on the individual to take care of their mental health while ignoring management's role in solving the problem. A new anti-burnout campaign from the Centers for Disease Control and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health avoids this typical and often frustrating- tactic, instead imploring leaders to better support health care workers.

Much of the campaign focuses on what leaders can do to improve the work environment in their organizations, offering tools that include a worker well-being questionnaire, a guide encouraging leaders to share their own struggles with mental health to help encourage staff to do the same, and online workshops on topics like how to support work-life balance, veterans, and sleep.

The initiative goes beyond the token 'pizza and donuts' that health care workers typically get from employers in lieu of action, said Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, director of the Institute for Policy Solutions at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. But fixing the problem of health care worker burnout, Guilamo-Ramos and other experts told STAT, requires larger systemic change.

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The Hidden Career Cost of Being Overweight. -The Wall Street Journal

"Looking back, Michelle Matthews said she often internalized co-workers' comments about her weight. At one work lunch, a teammate remarked on how much she was eating. A higher-up told her she needed to 'show up physically as a leader' after she failed to win a promotion.

It wasn't until the tech-product design director switched to remote work in 2020 that she grasped how much such slights had colored her office career.

'I didn't realize how much I was thinking about my physicality,' said Matthews, 38, who describes herself as a big person. 'It took up a lot of my mind.'

Weight stigma is rarely talked about at work, but it pervades workplaces everywhere, employees and hiring managers say. Study after study shows heavier people are paid and promoted less than thinner colleagues and are often stereotyped as lazy or undisciplined. In a spring study of more than 1,000 human-resources executives, 11% said an applicant's weight had factored into hiring decisions. Half of managers surveyed in a separate poll said they preferred interacting with 'healthy-weight' employees, according to SHRM, the human resources professional network that conducted the surveys.

Now, as New York City and some states move to outlaw weight discrimination at work, companies are beginning to focus on the experience of overweight workers. Many managers are unprepared for the wave of complaints the legislation could bring, advocates for the laws say.

Weight 'is still not looked at from a [diversity and inclusion] perspective,' says Jessica Richman, founder of the Visible Collective, a group that advises companies on supporting workers and consumers who are considered obese."

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Multilingualism Is an American Tradition. So Is Backlash to It. -Time Magazine

"During a recent campaign-style speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), former President Donald Trump added a new twist to his usual anti-immigrant discourse by suggesting that immigrants coming to the United States are speaking 'languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of.'

The implication in Trump's statement is that linguistic diversity is a threat. This argument is not new. While the United States does not have an official language and more than 350 languages are currently spoken here, political debate over the use of languages other than English is nearly as old as the United States itself.

History shows us that the United States has been a reluctantly multilingual society, often pursuing linguistic assimilation instead of capitalizing on its natural linguistic diversity. Far from being mysterious and dangerous, multilingualism strengthens the economy and builds international connections.

From the time of independence, the United States has been a multilingual society. IN addition to the hundreds of indigenous languages spoken prior to the first contact with European explorers and settlers, more than a quarter of all early settlers were non-English speaking. As the United States expanded, through the Louisiana Purchase and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it added both territory and vast numbers of speakers of French and Spanish. Read More

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