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Would You Hire a Pregnant Woman?
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission saw a 14% increase in pregnancy-discrimination complaints last year.
Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay | Business Week
May 02, 2008
Would you hire a pregnant woman?
If you’re British and said yes, then you’re decidedly in the minority among your peers. A recent survey by the UK-based Employment Law Advisory Services (ELAS) found that only 5% of managers would offer a job to a pregnant candidate. Fifty-two percent said that when making a hire, they assessed the likelihood of a candidate’s getting pregnant, taking into account her age and whether she had recently married.
On this side of the pond, last year the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission saw a 14% increase in pregnancy-discrimination complaints and received 20,400 pregnancy-bias inquiries at its newly established call center.
I understand managers wanting to avoid the costs and inconveniences of hiring someone who in several months’ time will be on leave, whether for 12 weeks and unpaid—standard terms in almost all U.S. states for women who work for companies with more than 50 employees—or for much longer and at partial pay (UK law allows women to take up to 52 weeks, with some pay). But at the same time I wonder how many managers consider that, in passing over pregnant candidates, they might be missing out on long-term value in the form of intense employee loyalty?
The manager who hired me did so when I was eight months’ pregnant, and my company treated my leave the same as anyone else’s (paying me a certain percentage of my salary for a certain number of weeks), although it wasn’t bound by law to do so.
dani113
4 months ago
2 comments
I've never been looking for a job while pregnant, but I think honesty is the way to go. As a working mom, I believe you CAN work while having a family..it's challenging but it can be done.. However, where I work, there is a women who has been there for 9mo (she's now on maternity leave) but I think she must have been pregnant when she interviewed. Now, maybe it's just the lack of work ethic, not necessarily being pregnant, but she spends more time on personal calls, long lunches, literally falling asleep in meetings than trying to show the boss that she's a valuable asset. Needless to say, it brings down morale in the rest of the group, who DO work hard...
miss_sharon1986
4 months ago
2 comments
I think that she could be hired for a short-term and than if she wanted to come back if I had an opening I would let her, because she is probablly applying for the job in the first place because she needs the money to support her child and thats good.
Jill
5 months ago
10 comments
Part of me wouldn't even consider looking for a job while I was pregnant for fear that I wouldn't be considered fairly for the position.
Daniela
5 months ago
1488 comments
I know of far too many women who've been discriminated against - in one way or the other - for their decision to start a family while being employed full-time.
stephanievarholak
5 months ago
4 comments
My fiancé and I talk about this topic a lot lately because we have been discussing our plans for having children. We do believe that the maternity and paternity leave laws of a country have an affect on pregnant women being hired and it's not something we condone. I think that companies and governing entities in the US need to take a hard look at what we are offering in the way of maternity leave. Everything I have read on the topics of child development suggests that the early bonding time (especially during the first year) is crucial to determining a variety of personality and psychological traits and characteristics the child develops. Also, from a physical health perspective, doctors are now telling women it is best to keep a child out of day care for the first year to ensure they develop immunities and other items that will impact their health for life. Yet, our social/economic system is in no way set up to support these assertions for what we seem to know are best for our future generations. In reality I think many US workplaces are quite often establishing policies toward family leave that discourage young women from seeking employment with their agency, etc. if they plan to have children because they are rather punitive if you do.