Most women with ADHD didn’t find out until adulthood.
While nearly half of boys are diagnosed by age 11, only 1 in 4 girls are.
And 61% of women don’t get diagnosed until adulthood—often after years of masking, burnout, and self-blame. (ADDitude, 2024)

Consider this, taken from this CHADD article because it cannot be better stated:

Outward hyperactivity, for one, tends to decrease as a person ages—or they learn to better manage that symptom—whereas inattention and impulsivity do not.

“This means that many undiagnosed, inattentive-type girls live their lives in a state of stress,” says Kathleen G. Nadeau, PhD. “And for those girls with ADHD who are very bright, their grades are good and no one knows the struggles they experience. No one knows the anxiety that overcomes them as they procrastinate over long-term assignments and then, at the last minute, turn in an assignment that puts them near the top of the class.”

Those early experiences carryover into adulthood, when many women will seek an evaluation. Frequently, they will receive a diagnosis for a co-occurring condition before the underlying ADHD is identified.

“They arrive at adulthood often struggling with anxiety and/or depression,” Dr. Nadeau says. “And when they seek counseling, these are the diagnoses they receive, leaving their ADHD still in hiding, but causing countless challenges as they go about their daily lives.”

This 2023 study looked at how college students with learning disabilities (LD) and/or ADHD adjusted to remote learning during COVID-19.

TLDR:

• Who was involved: 621 college students — some studied before COVID, others during the pandemic.
  About one-third had LD or ADHD. The rest did not and served as a comparison group.

• What they found: Students with LD or ADHD struggled more with adjusting to both in-person and remote learning. Those with both LD and ADHD had the hardest time — showing more academic, emotional, and institutional challenges, and reported feeling less satisfied with life overall.

• Key insight: ADHD directly impacted how satisfied students felt with life, especially when their ability to adjust to school was low.

Per this U of California memorandum: Neurodivergent students have the lowest graduation rate than any other disability group. The graduation rate for neurodiverse students is 58% but 79% for students without disabilities. Similarly, to other disability groups, neurodivergent students reported decreased campus friendliness, safety and respect.

Sure does.

With neurodivergent employees often choosing not to disclose their diagnosis due to fear of bias, the layers of stress, anxiety, guilt and more tend to lean on each other like dominoes. Causing many to have repeated cycles of burnout, barely functioning, and living with rampant dis ease. Research by the McKinsey Health Institute in collaboration with the World Economic Forum indicates that enhanced employee health and well-being could generate up to $11.7 trillion in global economic value. Organizations that prioritize health often see marked improvements in productivity, reduced absenteeism, lower healthcare costs, and heightened employee engagement and retention.

I'd say, yes, this is something that has become of dire importance as more people discern their diagnoses later in life and work leans more and more toward the online, work-and-study-from-home space.