The overlooked workforce: Midlife women who are quietly checking out

Midlife women are not a problem to be solved. They are the most undervalued leadership pipeline in the country, writes Denny Nesbitt.

As a career coach who helps midlife women change careers, I’ve noticed a common theme: workplace redesign and meaningful conversations about flexibility could have kept many of my clients with their employers.

A growing number of midlife women are disengaging from their work, not loudly, but quietly and steadily. These are women in their 40s and 50s with decades of experience, organisational knowledge, and emotional intelligence. Yet many struggle through caregiving years, or re-emerge afterwards, to find themselves in roles that no longer align with who they’ve become.

From where I sit, this trend represents an invisible, but significant retention risk. These women aren’t leaving because they’ve lost ambition or capability. They’re leaving because their roles have remained static, while they themselves have changed. And when organisations lose them, they’re not just losing headcount, they’re losing what could have been their future leadership bench.

The quiet disengagement HR isn’t tracking

Midlife women rarely register as a “flight risk” in workforce analytics. They’re steady performers. They don’t complain loudly. They don’t cause disruption.

But in my coaching conversations, two patterns keep appearing:

1. Mid-career caregivers who need meaningful flexibility

Flexible work has improved, but for many, it still defaults to “part-time,” which can mean the same workload for a smaller pay cheque or a scaled-back role with fewer opportunities. What these women actually need is flexibility with intention:

• outcome-based work
• compressed hours
• true hybrid arrangements
• job-sharing
• the ability to flex around caregiving spikes.

These women are leaving because they feel backed into a corner. By the time they reach someone like me, they’ve concluded that a full career pivot is the only way to reclaim their life.

2. Post-caregiving women who are underutilised

Others have “held on” for years, keeping things afloat during the intense caregiving years. When they finally have the bandwidth to step up, they discover their employer still sees them as the person they were a decade ago.

One client’s employer was surprised to learn she had an MBA when she resigned; no one had ever asked about her aspirations.

This is not a talent issue. It’s a talent recognition issue.

Why HR leaders should care

When midlife women check out – whether they stay or eventually leave – organisations feel it. Quiet disengagement erodes succession planning, leadership pipelines, diversity in decision making, and organisational knowledge.

And because turnover at this level often looks like “career break’, “personal reasons” or “consulting”, it doesn’t show up as preventable attrition, even when it absolutely is.

Research points to the same story. ABS data shows that female participation reached a record high of 63.5 per cent in January 2025, up from 58.6 per cent 10 years ago. At the same time, Great Place to Work’s Best Workplaces for Women List shows a decline in wellbeing and trust in leadership among women. Deloitte’s 2023 report found that lack of flexibility is the top reason women leave their employers.

Midlife women are returning to work in record numbers, energised and ready, but workplaces haven’t caught up.

The organisational blind spots driving disengagement

Across organisations, I see four recurring barriers:

1. Outdated assumptions about ambition

Midlife women are often miscategorised as “steady contributors,” not future leaders. This limits their visibility in talent and succession pipelines.

2. Roles that fossilise

Positions that haven’t been redesigned in 10–15 years rarely fit the person in them today. Job creep is real, but so is job stagnation.

3. One-dimensional flexibility

Part-time isn’t a strategy. It’s a blunt instrument. It doesn’t address the real issue – autonomy and influence over how the work is done.

4. Managers who avoid career conversations

Most managers were trained to oversee tasks, not careers. Without proactive, coaching-style conversations, opportunities remain hidden in plain sight.

What HR leaders can do

Here’s what re-engagement looks like in practice:

1. Train managers in coaching-style conversations

Career development should not be a once-a-year performance discussion. Managers need the capability (and permission) to ask:

• How has work changed for you?
• What would stretch you?
• Where do you want to grow next?
• What’s standing in the way?

These questions surface talent and frustrations long before resignation letters do.

2. Take work design seriously

Redesign roles with the individual’s capability and life stage in mind. This includes:

• Removing legacy tasks.
• Elevating strategic responsibilities.
• Creating progression opportunities that don’t hinge on traditional leadership paths.

Your next leader might already be in the room – she just hasn’t been asked what she wants.

3. Build flexibility into headcount and budgeting

A rigid FTE model is one of the biggest unseen blockers to retaining midlife talent. When every role is permanently allocated, and budgets are fully locked in, there’s no capacity for movement – even when it makes strategic sense.

By designing flexibility into workforce planning – fractional roles, shared FTE across teams, short-term project allocations, buffer capacity for secondments – organisations create the structural room women need to shift roles, increase scope, or take on stretch assignments.

4. Embrace secondments and break down silos

Mobility doesn’t just happen because systems allow it – it happens when leaders encourage it. Secondments, job rotations, and cross-functional projects often reignite ambition and surface strengths that static roles hide. Many of the women I work with thrive in new careers that, ironically, existed within their organisation all along. They didn’t lack capability; they lacked opportunities to explore it.

Midlife women are not a problem to solve

They are the most undervalued leadership pipeline in the country.

If organisations want a future-ready workforce – resilient, strategic, and emotionally intelligent – they should start with what’s under their nose and recognise the women on their payroll demonstrating those qualities every day.

The question isn’t whether midlife women are checking out.

The question is whether we notice soon enough to ask what they need before they’re gone.

Denny Nesbitt is a career change specialist and coach.