Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore how a small group of white South African men going through menopause attached meaning to this major event in their lives, and also how it affected the decisions they took as leaders in the financial sector. In view of the fact that menopause is a natural process that, according to the existing literature, has a strong influence on men’s behaviour,
the following research question was formulated: “Do behavioural changes due
to menopause ultimately affect men’s social lives, and particularly their behaviour in the work environment where as leaders they take important decisions?” In collecting data I followed a field research approach where focused interviews were used involving asking questions, listening, expressing interest and recording what was said. Five participants were selected, including myself
(I provided an autoethnographic narrative). Having opted for a particular application of the grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and in keeping within the requirements of modernist qualitative research, i.e., providing sufficient information to establish the study’s credibility, and at the same time giving the participants a voice, I conveyed the data, the findings of the study, and the inferences I made according to grounded theory’s three analytical steps namely, open coding, axial coding and selective coding. The findings indicated that menopause symptoms in particular (their physical,
psychological and sexual dimensions) had a profound influence on the systemic male. The themes that I inferred from the data through continuous and systematic comparisons were related to decision-making in the work
environment. This continuous comparative approach crystallised in the study’s
emerging core theme, namely: “the decreased need for work power in the work environment due to psychological integration occurring during their menopause” as well as its substantive theory: “work power trade-offs result in decreased decision-making power during the male menopause phase”.