Pregnancy and Employment: A Literature Review - Crisis Pregnancy ...

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Pregnancy and Employment: A Literature Review 1.1 Introduction Over the past few decades women’s participation in the paid labour market has risen substantially both in Ireland and internationally. As a consequence, pregnancy in the workplace has become a much more common occurrence. This chapter sets the context for the rest of the review by discussing the Irish and international literature and statistics on maternal employment. Section 1.2 outlines recent increases in mothers’ labour market participation in Ireland and in a comparative European context. While labour market participation has increased among mothers generally these rates of increase did not apply equally to all mothers. Section 1.3 discusses the somewhat different labour market experience of lone mothers with young children. Countries also differ in the extent to which part-time work is used to combine employment and caring roles and this is the focus of Section 1.4. To understand the employment of mothers (and other groups) across different societies, it is important to take into account the institutional arrangements or ‘welfare regimes’ that contribute to shaping these patterns. This is considered in Section 1.5. Section 1.6 examines shifts in attitudes towards maternal employment. 1.2 Trends in Maternal Employment The majority of mothers with young children and women of childbearing age are now in the workforce and their treatment during and after pregnancy has become increasingly relevant over time. Three quarters of all women of peak childbearing age (20-44 years) are active in the labour market, as are 60% of mothers of pre-school children (Figure 1.1). There has been a long-term increase in employment among women in Ireland over recent decades. 2 For women of peak childbearing age (20 to 44 years) employment grew from 62% to 70% in the ten years from 1997 to 2007 during the economic boom, although a drop in the employment rate was observed in 2009 as the recession took hold (Figure 1.1). There was particularly strong growth in maternal employment in Ireland during the late 1990s. Employment rates among mothers with pre-school children increased from 49% in 1998 to 57% in 2007, but fell back slightly to 56% in 2009 (see Figure 1.1). Few studies on the relationship between motherhood and the labour market focus on the issue of unemployment. The activity rate is the proportion of the population in the labour market (employed or unemployed), while the employment rate is the proportion in employment. Thus in Figure 1.1 the gap between the two lines for each group represents the unemployed. Mothers generally have lower levels of unemployment than non-mothers; this is partly due to definitional and measurement difficulties (Russell, 1996). Women attempting to return to the workforce following childbirth or a period of caring often experience involuntary unemployment although it may not be officially recognised as such (McRae, 1993; Russell, 2000). Recent research on those registering for unemployment benefit show that women with young children are more likely to remain dependent on welfare for over 12 months (O’Connell et al, 2009). Figure 1.1: Trends in employment and activity rates of mothers with children under 5 years and women 20-44 years, Ireland 80.0% 75.0% 70.0% 65.0% x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Mothers Emp Rate Mothers Activity Rate Women 20 - 44 Years Emp Rate Women 20 - 44 Years Activity Rate 60.0% 55.0% 50.0% 45.0% 40.0% 35.0% 30.0% 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Source: Own calculations based on published CSO figures PAGE 4 2 Measuring the long-term evolution of Irish women’s participation in the labour market is difficult due to definitional problems in historical data, but it is clear that from the 1970s onwards there was a steady rise in participation, particularly among married women (Fahey, 1990; Fahey et al, 2000).
Pregnancy and Employment: A Literature Review The rising trend in maternal employment means that Irish rates are now closer to the European average. Figures produced by the OECD show that in 2005 employment among Irish mothers with children under 16 years was 58% compared with an average figure of 60% for 19 EU countries for which data was available. There is still wide variation in maternal employment within the EU, ranging from a rate of 83% in Sweden and 77% in Denmark to a low of 46% in Poland and 48% in Italy. Table 1.1: Maternal employment rates (%) across EU: women aged 15-64, 2005 by age of youngest child by number of children under 15 0-16
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