Hot flashes, cold feet? No evidence of a menopause effect on risk preferences

Menopause, a biological transition marked by the permanent cessation of menstruation, affects millions of women each year, bringing about significant physical, emotional, mental, and social changes. Yet, its potential influence on economic behavior remains largely unexplored. This study investigates whether menopause affects women’s risk preferences, using an incentivized lottery task and psychological questionnaires in a large online sample of over 1700 UK women. While menopausal participants initially appear less risk-taking than non-menopausal women, this difference vanishes once age is controlled for. Across multiple model specifications and robustness checks, menopausal status has no independent effect on investment behavior. Instead, risk aversion increases gradually with age, regardless of menopausal classification. These findings suggest that the economic implications often attributed to menopause may, in fact, reflect broader age-related trends. By disentangling the effects of age and menopausal status, this study contributes to a more precise understanding of how biological and demographic factors shape decision-making.