Design, Not Entitlement, Will Decide Menstrual Leave’s Impact
Paid menstrual leave will work if firms are protected too
A background note can be accessed here: Bill Proposes 2 Days Paid Menstrual Leave
Find the companion commentary here: Menstrual Leave Must Reduce Bias, Not Raise Hiring Costs
Sudipta Kashyap: Research Scholar, Institute for Social and Economic Change
SDG 5: Gender Equality | SDG 8: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Ministry of Labour and Employment | Ministry of Women and Child Development
The Bill mandates two days of paid menstrual leave monthly for female employees. Given India’s fragile female labour-force participation and the cost sensitivity of many private employers (notably MSMEs), how should the legislation be designed to minimise the risk of employer discrimination in hiring while still delivering meaningful menstrual equity?
The main implementation risk – particularly for MSMEs – is that a gender-specific paid leave mandate becomes perceived as a fixed cost, prompting risk-averse employers to adjust hiring rather than absorb the expense. To prevent this, the law should spread part of the cost across the system instead of placing it entirely on individual firms. One option is reimbursement of menstrual leave wages through existing contributory systems such as the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), or time-bound tax credits for compliant MSMEs. This follows the logic of the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, where public financing – often subject to salary caps – helped smoothen employer resistance to the aforementioned policy.
Operational design is equally important. Allowing menstrual leave to be taken from a consolidated sick- or health-leave pool lowers administrative friction, limits signalling effects in personnel decisions, and treats menstruation as a routine health need rather than an exceptional category.
Finally, cost-sharing must be complemented by enforcement. The labour codes should carry an explicit anti-discrimination clause covering hiring, promotion, and termination decisions linked to menstrual leave eligibility. This requires investment in enforcement capacity – training labour inspectors and tribunals on evidence, standards and remedies – so that the protection functions in practice and not merely on paper.
Monthly paid leave could alter labour availability and operating costs, especially in sectors with high female concentration. What empirical safeguards or phased rollout mechanisms would be prudent to ensure firms adapt without unintended job losses or informalisation?
A blanket mandate risks creating adjustment shocks in sectors with high female employment and limited staffing flexibility. A more prudent design is a phased rollout aligned with firm capacity. Initial coverage should focus on the public sector and large private employers, where administrative systems and financial buffers already exist. MSMEs and labour-intensive sectors can be added later, once compliance models have stabilised.
Policy calibration should be driven by evidence rather than assumption. Structured pilots across firm sizes, sectors, and regions – urban and rural – can generate data on absenteeism, productivity, hiring responses, and worker retention. These findings should inform policy design – cost-sharing ratios, and compliance thresholds before scaling.
In labour-intensive MSME clusters, such as garments or food processing, continuity concerns can be mitigated through shared staffing or rotational labour arrangements. Cluster-level platforms or funds that subsidise temporary replacements during short absences can reduce disruption while avoiding firm-level penalties that might otherwise encourage informalisation or substitution away from female labour.
The Bill layers new gender-specific entitlements onto existing frameworks. How should policymakers assess the aggregate effect of gender-targeted leave on long-run workplace equality, social-security coverage and women’s economic empowerment, and when might gender-neutral alternatives better advance inclusion?
Menstrual leave adds to an expanding stack of gender-targeted benefits, making it important to assess its combined effects on workplace equality, social-security coverage and women’s economic mobility. Implementation cannot rely on statute alone. It requires sustained investments in employer and worker capacity – through training modules, operational toolkits, and public communication – that frame the policy as a health and productivity measure rather than a special accommodation. Accessibility is vital, particularly in informal and rural labour markets, where materials must be available in regional languages and tailored to different literacy levels.
Given the diversity of Indian employment, sector-specific implementation guidance is preferable to uniform rules. Female-intensive sectors such as garments, healthcare, education, and food processing face distinct operational constraints that generic compliance norms may overlook. Parallel investment in accessible grievance redressal mechanisms, both digital and physical, is essential to detect unintended effects and behavioural responses that routine reporting may miss.
Finally, policymakers should treat menstrual leave as an adaptive instrument, not a fixed entitlement. Evidence from pilots and early rollout should inform periodic reassessment of funding models, benefit frameworks, and communication strategies. Institutionalised dialogue among government, industry, and civil society – often limited in India’s labour-policy architecture – will be critical in identifying when gender-neutral health or caregiving leave might better advance inclusion without reinforcing gender-based penalties.
Author:
Sudipta Kashyap is a Research Scholar at the Institute for Social and Economic Change.
Views are personal.