{"id":1390,"date":"2005-03-01T08:01:25","date_gmt":"2005-03-01T16:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/03\/01\/employer-discrimination-against-pregnant-women-on-the-rise\/"},"modified":"2005-03-01T08:01:25","modified_gmt":"2005-03-01T16:01:25","slug":"employer-discrimination-against-pregnant-women-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1390","title":{"rendered":"Employers Discriminate More Against Pregnant Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

A good article on anti-pregnancy discrimination<\/a> in USA Today <\/em>(although I do have a couple of nit-picks). Here are some key passages:<\/p>\n

Pregnancy discrimination complaints filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) jumped 39% from fiscal year 1992 to 2003, according to a recent analysis of government data by the Washington-based National Partnership for Women & Families. During that same time, the nation’s birthrate dropped 9%.<\/p>\n

The surge in pregnancy complaints makes it one of the fastest-growing types of employment discrimination charges filed with the EEOC … outpacing the rise in sexual harassment and sex discrimination claims.[…]<\/p>\n

The rise in pregnancy discrimination cases is important now because more women of child-bearing age are in the labor force: Women make up about 47% of the total labor force, and they’re projected to account for more than half of the increase in total labor force growth from 2002 until 2012, according to the Department of Labor.<\/p>\n

And more working women are having children at a later age, when careers are better established and more is financially at stake. In 2000, the average American woman having her first child was almost 25 years old. In 1970, the average age was 21.4 years for a first birth, according to a 2002 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.[…]<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen an explosion, a huge increase in cases,” says Mary Jo O’Neill, a regional lawyer with the EEOC. “The kind of cases we’re seeing are very blatant, cases where managers say, ‘We don’t want pregnant women working here.’ ”<\/p>\n

Several factors may be behind the trend:<\/p>\n

* More pregnant women are staying in the workplace rather than going on early leave. More women are working while pregnant, and they’re working further into their pregnancies. In the decade before the 1978 passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, more than half of employed women quit their jobs when they became pregnant, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families analysis of government data. The non-profit education and advocacy group also found that, by the early 1990s, that number dropped to 27% of pregnant women.<\/p>\n

The discrimination is more prevalent because there are so many more women who are working pregnant,” says Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. “People think pregnancy discrimination is a thing of the past, that it doesn’t happen anymore. But it does.”<\/p>\n

* Productivity pressures and the economy. The sluggish economy in recent years has pushed employers to lay off workers and stress productivity, leaving fewer employees doing more work. Employers may see pregnant workers … with pending maternity leave and their possible need for more flexible work arrangements in the future … as a liability.<\/p>\n

“Pregnancy is expensive for employers,” says Veronica Duffy, an employment lawyer in Rapid City, S.D., who has represented pregnant women filing discrimination claims. “And as health insurance costs rise, costs become more of an issue. Employers are driven to discriminate.”<\/p>\n

* Stereotypes about pregnant women persist. Mounting research shows that women who become pregnant are viewed as less competent in the workplace … a view that is held by both male and female co-workers.<\/p>\n

In one study published in 1993 in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, pregnant and non-pregnant women performed tasks that were rated by college students drafted for the research. While both subjects performed the same, those who were pregnant consistently received lower performance ratings. They were viewed as overly emotional, often irrational, physically limited and less than committed to their jobs, according to the report.<\/p>\n

In another study, pregnant women were interviewed about their own experiences on the job. About half said their supervisors’ reactions to their pregnancies were negative, according to the report published in 1997 in the Journal of Business and Psychology.<\/p>\n

They also reported intrusive comments from co-workers, including such comments as, “Why are you eating so much?” and, “Do you have stretch marks yet?” About half of pregnant women managers said subordinates became upset or hostile.<\/p>\n

“When women become pregnant, they’re seen as putting personal life ahead of work,” says Jane Halpert, an associate professor of industrial and organizational psychology at DePaul University who worked on the studies. “There’s a whole set of separate attitudes that show up at work when you get pregnant.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s worth reading the entire article<\/a>, which also includes several real-life stories of pregnant women who have experienced discrimination.<\/p>\n

The article suggests a couple of times that maybe the poor widdle employers are just confused and don’t understand the regulations, because state and federal regulations sometimes don’t match. That strikes me as bullshit; if, as the EEOC rep said, “The kind of cases we’re seeing are very blatant, cases where managers say, ‘We don’t want pregnant women working here,’ ” then what’s going on isn’t innocent, well-meaning managers not understanding subtle nuances of the law.<\/p>\n

The article also conflates employer eagerness to get rid of pregnant employees due to the medical expenses of pregnancy and infants with “Productivity pressures and the economy.” Actually, that should be seen as a separate issue. Employers – rather than the government – are (sometimes) expected to pay medical costs in the United States. In every other first-world country, the government picks up such expenses. Employers in other first-world countries, all else held equal, feel much less pressure to discriminate against pregnant women.<\/p>\n

Via LA Mom<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A good article on anti-pregnancy discrimination in USA Today (although I do have a couple of nit-picks). Here are some key passages: Pregnancy discrimination complaints filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) jumped 39% from fiscal year 1992 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender-and-the-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}