Hi everyone,
So far, 2025 has been a year of intense writing and reflection for me. I’ve just finished a book that will be published in France this October (more on that very soon), and I’ve also had the privilege of writing a report for La Fondation des Femmes, a remarkable organisation fighting for women’s rights and gender equality in France. This foundation plays a crucial role in supporting feminist initiatives through funding, legal advocacy, and public awareness. I’m proud to contribute to its mission at a time when the need for action has never felt more urgent.
The report I was asked to write focuses on a group too often forgotten: women between the ages of 45 and 65. These women are paid less, promoted less, and seen less. They become invisible just as they start to see things more clearly. Their health concerns are often dismissed. They carry the emotional and practical burden of caring for both older and younger generations—the so-called “sandwich generation”—and they’re often exhausted. Writing this report was enraging. It sheds light on a cruel paradox: just when women reach a stage of life marked by insight, experience, and strength, society turns away from them.
👉 READ THE REPORT IN FRENCH (Fondation des femmes)
This report exposes what I call women’s “experience trap”: women’s accumulated skills and expertise are treated not as assets, but as liabilities once they pass the age of 45. Women in France lose an average of €157,245 in earnings compared to men—that’s €7,862 per year. Behind these numbers lies a structural injustice: a society that sidelines its most experienced female talent, failing to recognise their value just when they should be most empowered.
For women in the private sector, this penalty reaches €159,000 over the same period. These figures highlight more than statistical disparities; they reveal how France transforms women's decades of professional growth into economic punishment, creating an "experience trap" where expertise means exclusion and seniority becomes stigma.
This systematic waste of human capital represents not just individual hardship but a collective economic catastrophe, as France squanders the potential of millions of women at the height of their professional powers.💡👇
The double penalty: when ageism meets sexism
INSEE data reveal that salary gaps between men and women dramatically worsen after age 40, demonstrating how the experience trap tightens over time. In France's combined public and private sectors, the income gap increases from 23% at ages 40-49 to over 27% after age 55. This progression represents what we coin "the cost of seniority" for women—a perverse system where additional years of experience correlate with greater economic penalty.
The situation is particularly acute in the private sector, where salary gaps in full-time equivalent positions surge from 13.6% at ages 40-49 to nearly 25% after age 60. Before age 40, the gap stands at 10% in full-time equivalent terms. By age 60, a private sector woman earns €937 less monthly than her male equivalent—a staggering difference that reflects decades of accumulated disadvantages, where each year of additional experience paradoxically decreases rather than increases her market value.
This economic penalty stems from multiple intersecting factors. According to Force Femmes, a French organisation supporting women over 45 in career transitions, 47% of recruitment agencies admit difficulty "placing" women over 45. The challenges these women face include:
Perceived lack of flexibility and adaptability ;
Assumptions about obsolete digital skills ;
Concerns about high salary costs ;
Judgments about insufficient remaining working years ;
Discrimination based on physical appearance (cited by 78% of recruitment agencies)
While 16.9% of women report age discrimination compared to 13.8% of men, 23.7% of women also face sex-based discrimination—creating a double barrier to career advancement.
The sandwich generation: caught between care responsibilities
Women aged 45-65 often find themselves in the "sandwich generation," simultaneously caring for aging parents, supporting teenage (or young adult) children, and sometimes providing childcare for grandchildren. This period represents the culmination of care responsibilities that have shaped women's careers throughout their lives.
👉 ALSO READ Laetitia@Work #63, “The Sandwich Generation”
The average age of becoming a grandmother in France is 55—well before retirement—yet this role's professional impact remains largely unrecognised. According to the European Grandparents School (EGPE), grandmothers contribute 23 million hours weekly of unpaid childcare. This invisible labour often requires professional accommodations, reduced working hours, or early retirement.
As Odile Plan, president of the Or Gris association, notes: "In our imagination, the grandmother is the one who always says yes." This cultural expectation creates pressure for women to prioritise family care over professional advancement, despite their continued career ambitions.
The report references earlier research demonstrating that 41% of female caregivers refuse professional opportunities, while 43% stop working entirely. This caregiving role pushes women toward part-time work (29% compared to 13% of men) and compromises their retirement rights, with 62% expressing concern compared to 44% of men.
The health impact is equally severe: 81% of female caregivers prioritise others' health over their own, 20% forgo their own medical care, and over half experience mental overload, stress, and professional burnout. One-third suffer psychologically, with real mortality risks—60% of caregivers face increased mortality risk following a loved one's illness.
A thicker glass ceiling
The traditional glass ceiling becomes a "seniors' ceiling," particularly resistant to breaking. If you haven’t broken it until yet, there’s not much chance you’ll break it now. You’re no longer seen as having ‘potential’.
Professional trajectories differ sharply by gender: as men age, they are increasingly likely to move into executive roles—a trend not mirrored among women. Economist Françoise Milewski notes, “Among full-time employees, career progression is significantly more pronounced for men, especially those with higher education, whereas for women, career paths remain relatively flat regardless of education level or generation.”
Women’s salaries tend to plateau around the national average throughout their careers, while men’s earnings climb steadily, reaching 130% of the national average by the end of their careers—compared to just 110% for women. This wage stagnation reflects limited internal mobility: only 12% of senior-level women report receiving a promotion in the past five years, versus 19% of their male counterparts.
Entrepreneurship as escape route
Facing employment barriers, many senior women turn to entrepreneurship. While women represent only 25% of business leaders overall, 37% of female entrepreneurs launch their ventures after age 50, compared to 23% of men. However, they typically create businesses in traditionally female sectors—care, wellness, personal services—which generate lower revenues.
The gender gap persists in entrepreneurship: women’s average annual revenue is 20% lower than men’s (€39,363 versus €49,304 among the self-employed). Among so-called micro-entrepreneurs—a simplified legal status in France designed to encourage small-scale, often solo business activity—women earned an average of €6,598 in 2022, 18.9% less than men’s €8,135.
The menopause penalty
Menopause affects millions of French women— almost half of all women and a quarter of the population. 87% experience at least one symptom, with 20-25% suffering severe symptoms. A 2023 study by MGEN and Fondation des Femmes found that 35% of French people still find menopause difficult to discuss, with 32% considering it "unpleasant" and 32% viewing it as "taboo."
Only 30% of female employees would discuss menopause-related issues with employers or supervisors, though this represents an 8-point increase since 2019. British research indicates women experience an average 4.3% income reduction in the four years following menopause diagnosis, reaching 10% by the fourth year—adding a "menopause penalty" to existing maternal and caregiving penalties.
A recent French parliamentary repors recommends making menopause a public health priority, proposing 25 measures including integration into mid-career medical visits, specialised consultations, and workplace accommodations.
Women’s health jeopardised at work
Women face increasing occupational health risks that often remain invisible. Workplaces designed with a male-centric perspective—from equipment to safety protocols—systematically disadvantage women. As Dr. Agnès Aublet-Cuvelier highlighted in her testimony to the Senate: "Wearing oversized gloves forces us to exert greater gripping force to hold both the gloves and objects. This mismatch significantly raises the risk of musculoskeletal disorders."
Women represent 60% of all workers who develop musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), with severity indexes three times higher among female workers than male workers. Between 2001 and 2019, while French men's workplace accidents decreased 27%, women's increased over 40%.
Only 23% of beneficiaries of the Professional Prevention Account (C2P)—a French system that helps workers in risky jobs reduce health hazards and extend their careers—are women. This is because the system’s six recognized risk factors—night work, high-pressure environments, extreme temperatures, noise, rotating shifts, and repetitive motions—mostly come from male-dominated industries. It overlooks health risks common in female-dominated jobs, such as long hours of standing, emotional stress, and light but repetitive tasks.
Older women’s precariousness is a social time bomb
A growing phenomenon affects those "neither employed nor retired" (NER)—people aged 55-69 who have left the workforce but cannot yet access the pension system. Women represent 60% of this group, with the proportion increasing from 14% to 16% between 2014 and 2021 due to successive pension reforms.
At age 55, 22% of women are NER compared to 17% of men, with the gap widening to nearly double by age 62 (11% versus 6%). Among 55-61 year-olds who are NER, 63% suffer chronic health problems compared to 35% of employed seniors. Among those who are NER due to health issues, 54% are women.
The phenomenon of senior women who are neither employed nor retired remains deeply invisible. Pension reforms tend to increase the number of people relying on social assistance—and women are disproportionately affected by this shift.
All these accumulated disadvantages lead to retirement poverty. Among French retirees living on less than €1,000 per month, 75% are women. On average, women receive a pension of €1,268 monthly, compared to €2,050 for men—a 38% gap.
Pension reversions help reduce this gap to 26%, as 32% of women receive them versus only 6% of men. However, this support weakens as fewer couples marry. Among elderly people below the poverty line, 70% are women, and one in six women over 75 lives in poverty.
The 2023 pension reform risks worsening these inequalities. The raised minimum pension of €1,200 remains out of reach for most women with interrupted careers, since it requires a full career history.
Nine policy recommendations
We end the report with nine policy proposals to address these systemic inequalities:
Launch a national campaign against inequalities for senior women, focused on the specific inequalities faced by senior women compared to senior men, targeting private-sector employers. This could include adapting the existing “50+ Charter” with commitments for senior women and commissioning new studies or parliamentary reports on the employment of senior women.
Take caregiving into account for retirement benefits: care work, mostly done by women for elderly relatives, sick loved ones, or disabled children, currently doesn’t count towards retirement credits. Introduce a “caregiving bonus” to validate retirement quarters for those who reduce or pause their work to provide care, similar to maternity leave recognition.
Acknowledge the hardship involved in women’s work: many physically and emotionally demanding jobs held by women (caregivers, cashiers, cleaners) are overlooked when recognising difficult working conditions. These roles involve heavy mental load, irregular hours, and emotional stress, but current systems fail to account for these challenges. It is essential to update workplace policies and protections to include these factors and better support women in such roles.
Make care jobs sustainable careers: care professions should no longer wear out workers before retirement. Develop career paths allowing experienced caregivers to move into less physically demanding roles, improve working conditions, staffing, equipment, and ensure recovery time is built into work schedules.
Protect part-time workers who care for others: many women work part-time to care for family members, risking future poverty. Reform pension rules so part-time caregivers can earn full retirement credits and fight the stigma that limits their job opportunities or career progression.
Address the “neither employed nor retired” group: most people who are neither employed nor retired (NER) are women. Improve data collection to better understand their situation, challenges, and needs. Use this information to design policies for job reintegration, health-accessible jobs, or transitional income support.
Boost research on women’s health and menopause: increase funding and focus on women’s health research, especially menopause, which remains neglected. Implement a public health plan in workplaces to raise awareness, train managers, adapt work conditions, and provide personalised care options.
Train occupational doctors on menopause: menopause symptoms often affect work performance but are rarely addressed in occupational health. Train workplace doctors to recognise symptoms, recommend accommodations, and manage risks like osteoporosis that can affect women in physically demanding jobs.
Create new caregiver and grandparent leave: senior women often provide care but receive little recognition. Introduce paid leave for caregiving to seriously ill family members and short paid grandparental leave to acknowledge their important family role.
Conclusion: Ending the double standard of ageing
As Susan Sontag wrote over 50 years ago in "The Double Standard of Aging," society judges women's ageing far more harshly than men's. While men supposedly gain authority and credibility with age, women are perceived as "declining" and marginalised from valued roles.
This represents an immense waste of skills, experience, and untapped potential, not just individual hardship but collective loss of productivity and societal wealth.
The report sheds light on invisible phenomena that don’t have to be inevitable. With ambitious public policies recognising women's contributions throughout their lives—from caregiving to professional expertise—France can prevent the social time bomb of senior women's precariousness while harnessing their full economic potential.
The cost of female seniority is ultimately the cost of a society that fails to value half its population's accumulated wisdom and experience. Breaking this pattern requires not just policy changes but a fundamental shift in how we perceive ageing, gender, and value creation in the 21st century.
💡For Nouveau Départ, I wrote many new articles (in French):
→ Subscribe to receive my future podcasts and articles directly in your inbox!
📢 I am pleased to announce the publication on June 12 of this new report I co-authored with the Fondation des Femmes, titled « Le coût de la séniorité. Sortir de l’invisibilisation pour prévenir la précarité de demain ». The report sheds light on the often invisible challenges faced by senior women in the workforce—balancing care responsibilities, enduring career barriers, and facing health risks—that contribute to growing economic precariousness. It offers nine policy recommendations to recognise and support women’s contributions and prevent future inequalities.
Miscellaneous
💻 For Some Recent Graduates, the A.I. Job Apocalypse May Already Be Here, Kevin Roose, The New York Times, May 2025: “Unemployment for recent college graduates has jumped to an unusually high 5.8 percent in recent months, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently warned that the employment situation for these workers had “deteriorated noticeably.” Oxford Economics, a research firm that studies labor markets, found that unemployment for recent graduates was heavily concentrated in technical fields like finance and computer science, where A.I. has made faster gains.”
Don’t let experience become a career trap! 🤗
Really appreciate the way your newsletter introduces (some of us, anyway) to really useful terms like "experience trap" and the "double penalty" of age-related and sex-based inequity. (You might be interested in connecting with Amita Sharma of Nourish Doc who's doing work in similar ways to yours.) Loved the practicality of the policies at the end. Thank you!
Thank you for doing this important work 🙏