Fussbucket

by Stacey

Increasing numbers of pregnant women are complaining of workplace bias, according to this article in the Wall Street Journal. Thanks to reader AADC for the tip.

Pregnancy-bias complaints recorded by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission surged 14% last year to 5,587, up 40% from a decade ago and the biggest annual increase in 13 years.

But a spokesperson for the EEOC says that number may be only the tip of the iceberg. The agency also received 20,400 pregnancy-bias inquiries at its call center last year, the center’s first full year of operation; that doesn’t include thousands more walk-ins asking about the same topic at fair-employment offices. An advocacy group, 9-to-5, National Association of Working Women, also is seeing an increase in pregnancy-bias calls on its hotline, the article says.

While employers can indeed fire, lay off or refuse to hire pregnant women, they can’t single them out for worse treatment — and they must be able to prove they held men to the same standards or asked male job candidates comparable questions. “Any action involving a pregnant woman has to be well-documented and well-justified,” says Jocelyn Frye of the National Partnership for Women & Families, an advocacy group. “Nobody should be finding out on maternity leave that she has performance issues.”

This isn’t just about pregnancy. Bias against mothers continues long past gestation. According to this article in December on MomsRising.org, mothers are routinely discriminated against in hiring and compensation for work, a problem the group calls maternal profiling.

The workplace impacts of maternal profiling are jaw dropping, especially given that three-quarters of American mothers are now in the workforce. In fact, the American Journal of Sociology recently reported a study which found that mothers are 79% less likely to be hired than non-mothers with equal resumes and job experiences.

Mothers also face steep wage hits and unequal wages for equal work. One study found that women without children make 90 cents to a man’s dollar, but women with children make only 73 cents to a man’s dollar. And single mothers make about 60 cents to a man’s dollar.

Studies like the one mentioned on Salon’s Broadsheet last week in the Journal of Vocational Behavior don’t help. The study analyzed the billing habits of 670 lawyers in Alberta, Canada.

According to the study abstract, the results showed “mothers with school-aged children are less productive than non-mothers, whereas fathers with preschool-aged children are more productive than non-fathers.” However, the study only looked at hours billed, not actual work completed. Perhaps the working mothers were more efficient than their male colleagues.

The Wall Street Journal article predicts that pregnancy-bias complaints will continue to rise as groups like MomsRising.org raise awareness of the problems that mothers face in the workforce. But complaints aren’t enough. The MomsRising article says there are solutions to maternal profiling: “we need changes in our national policies, our workplaces, and our culture to reflect that women are in the workplace to stay and that the majority of them have children.” Go to their Web site for more information if you’re interested.