Words: Rochelle Lake

The movement to tackle period poverty has grown quickly since 2017, with governments around the world being encouraged to provide free period care products in schools. Most recently, the New Zealand Government committed $2.9 million to continue providing free period products to primary, intermediate and secondary schools.

The key objective of these governments initiatives is to ensure students don’t miss out on school because they can’t afford period care products, allowing them to fully participate in all aspects of school and learning. Equally important is providing cost relief for families and reducing shame and embarrassment for students who don’t have access to products when they need them.

How widespread is poverty in our region? The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) reports one in six children in Australia lives in poverty. This is supported by the UNICEF Innocenti Report Card 18 Child Poverty in the Midst of Wealth, which reveals 17.1 percent of children in Australia between 2019-21 lived in relative income poverty, a slight increase of 1.7 percent since 2012-14. In New Zealand, the Household Economic Survey in the year ending June 2023, showed 12.5 percent of children lived in a household experiencing material hardship.

The movement to provide period care products in schools started in Scotland in 2017 and has spread across the United Kingdom, many US states, Canada, France, most Australian states (starting with Victorian state schools in 2019) and New Zealand schools in 2021. Today, millions of students around the world now have the benefit of accessing period care products at school.

It’s rare to see such a powerful and practical change happen so quickly. The pace indicates there is an obvious need for governments and that period care products should be considered essential equipment in schools to remove a barrier to school-age education.

What about other sectors such as tertiary education and workplaces? Again, governments in the UK, Canada and several US states are mandating the provision of free period care products in universities and colleges. Here in Australia governments are providing period care products at TAFEs in Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria. Student unions are leading the charge at several universities. Once students have had access to products at school, it’s natural to expect it at university and beyond, so it should be unsurprising that younger people are driving this change.

When it comes to workplaces the engagement is slower. Businesses broadly are taking a conservative approach to introducing free period care products and carefully weighing up the pros and cons of the additional cost. The reality is that the annual cost per menstruating employee averages at $20 per year, which is equal to a few cups of coffee a year or one person attending a team lunch. This cost is far outweighed by the value to the employee of feeling supported, seen and understood and having less anxiety at work. As well as increasing workplace morale, it is easy to imagine this would lead to improved staff productivity and higher attendance.

Workplace participation in access to free period care products is already happening within the public sector in New

Zealand and the health sector in Australia. These are sectors where care is at the forefront, defined by organisations that have a strong focus on employee wellbeing, diversity, equality and inclusion.

Fighting period poverty is a cause that I am personally very passionate about, but it’s also one with growing public support. The 2022 Essity global health and hygiene survey showed 66 percent of people agree that access to basic personal hygiene products such as menstruation pads in public spaces is essential for wellbeing.

The cleaning industry can play an important role in making period care products accessible by proactively offering this
as a value-added service offering and educating customers on this growing trend – one that is set to soon become the standard in bathrooms.

There is now a range of simple dispensing options available that can be installed and serviced like any other washroom product. Introducing the concept takes conversations about periods into the mainstream and helps reduce the shame and embarrassment about a topic that, after all, affects more than half of the population.

Rochelle Lake is head of marketing B2B at Essity