Menstrual Leave

Menstrual leave is time off work for painful or incapacitating menstruation, granted as its own category rather than taken from general sick leave. A small number of countries provide it by statute; most don’t.

It’s one of the few leave types with eighty years of evidence behind it — and the evidence is consistent in an uncomfortable way.

Where it exists

Japan has had it longest. Article 68 of the Labour Standards Act has required employers to permit menstrual leave on request since 1947. The employer must allow the absence but isn’t required to pay for it.

South Korea provides one day a month on request under its Labour Standards Act, with employees who don’t take it entitled to extra pay.

Taiwan grants three days a year under the Act of Gender Equality in Employment, separate from the standard 30 days of sick leave.

Indonesia has provided two days a month under Labour Act No. 13 since 2003, and Zambia one day a month since 2015.

Spain became the first European country to legislate, effective 1 June 2023. Its design is distinctive: it covers severe menstrual pain, including conditions such as endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome, requires a doctor to certify temporary incapacity, has no cap on days, and is paid by Social Security from the first day with no minimum contribution period — whereas ordinary Spanish sickness benefit starts on day three. The cost sits with the state, not the employer, deliberately.

Elsewhere, menstrual leave exists as company policy rather than law, and several Indian states have adopted measures for public-sector staff or students.

The take-up problem

Eighty years of Japanese data and three years of Spanish data agree on this.

In Japan, fewer than 10% of women take menstrual leave, and among those whose employer has a policy, only 1.9% take it almost every time. The reasons given in a 2021 survey of nearly 2,000 working women weren’t medical: reluctance to ask a male manager (61.8%), reluctance because few colleagues take it (50.5%), not wanting to burden the team (36.2%).

Spain points the same way. In roughly its first eleven months, menstrual leave was taken 1,559 times nationwide — an average of 4.75 people a day across the entire country, about three days each.

The design question

Both results trace to the same feature. Every menstrual leave scheme requires someone to identify the reason for the absence, and identification is exactly what people avoid.

The two laws put that barrier in different places. Japan’s asks an employee to tell their manager. Spain’s asks them to obtain a medical diagnosis — difficult to get for a condition that is episodic and poorly served by routine appointments. Neither removes the disclosure; it moves.

A second argument is worth knowing, because it comes from within the policy’s own constituency: some researchers worry a named, gender-specific entitlement could make employers quietly warier of hiring women. Others counter that an unnamed entitlement leaves the need invisible. The debate is live, and the evidence on hiring effects is thin in both directions.

The practical upshot is narrower and better established: schemes that don’t require a reason get used, and schemes that do, don’t. Several employers have concluded that generic flexible sick days, a workable remote option and managers who don’t interrogate short absences deliver more than a named policy nobody claims.

North America and elsewhere

Neither the US nor Canada has statutory menstrual leave at any level. Absence for menstrual symptoms runs through ordinary sick leave, and where a condition such as endometriosis is severe and long-lasting, it may engage disability accommodation duties under the ADA or provincial human rights codes. The UK likewise has no statutory entitlement, though a growing number of employers run voluntary policies, often alongside menopause support.

Read more on our blog: Menstrual Leave: Privilege or Basic Right

This entry is general information, not legal or medical advice. Statutory entitlements vary by country and change — verify locally before applying them.