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

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Pregnancy and Employment: A Literature Review • 47% agreed that some women abuse their rights during pregnancy, maternity leave and on return to work • 17% of employers agreed that pregnant women tend to be less committed to work • 12% disagreed that women returning to work after maternity leave are just as committed to work as other members of the team • 28% disagreed that it is worth training someone who is pregnant even though she may not return to work 20 • 85% agreed that during recruitment it is reasonable that women declare upfront if they are pregnant 21 Attitudes were found to be more negative among employers in small firms, establishments that had a lower proportion of female employees (less than half) and among those who had not dealt with a staff pregnancy in the preceding three years. This last finding leads the authors to conclude that, among employers, “the perception of potential difficulties may be worse than the actual experience” (Young & Morrell, 2005a, p40). A more pessimistic interpretation of this result is that it indicates that employers with negative attitudes are less likely to employ women of childbearing age. Public-sector employers expressed more positive attitudes towards pregnant employees than private-sector employers. For example, 87% of public-sector employers agreed or strongly agreed that it is worth training someone who is pregnant compared to 60% of private employers in the manufacturing sector and 70% of employers in the services sector. Smaller employers were also more likely to experience difficulties in managing pregnancy in the workplace. As one might expect, respondents in smaller workplaces more commonly mentioned problems with managing workload increases for other staff members and associated issues such as training new staff and arranging or planning cover during a leave period (Young & Morrell, 2005a). Employers’ knowledge of maternity entitlements was assessed on the basis of an open question on what they believed to be the statutory entitlements of pregnant women and those returning from maternity leave. Among employers in the English survey, around three in 10 could not name any statutory entitlement; 45% mentioned maternity leave, 46% maternity pay, 25% paid time off to attend an appointment, 7% risk assessment, 7% flexible working and 5% accrual of annual leave. While the percentages increased among employers with experience of a pregnant employee in the last three years, even among this group less than a third mentioned any of the entitlements other than maternity leave and pay. These responses may be partly influenced by the absence of any prompts in the question; nevertheless, the responses suggest wide gaps in employers’ knowledge of such entitlements. 22 Awareness of statutory entitlements for pregnant staff was found to be significantly higher among public-sector employers than among private-sector employers. In the US, researchers investigated employer discrimination toward workers with children by conducting a field experiment with employers. A pair of fictitious CVs and cover letters were sent to employers for advertised job vacancies over a period of 18 months. Qualification levels, prior experience, gender and other relevant characteristics were matched across the two applications, but parental status was varied. Childless women were found to receive twice as many calls to interview as mothers (Correll et al, 2007, p1331). For men, being a parent had no impact on the rate of calls to interview. Interestingly, childless women were more likely to be called to interview than equally qualified childless men (ibid). A second element of the study shed light on how stereotypes may disadvantage parents in the workforce. In a separate laboratory experiment, participants (who were not employers) were asked to evaluate a pair of equally qualified job candidates of the same gender but who differed in parental status, to rate their competence and to make a recommendation on hiring and starting salary. The results show that evaluators judged mothers to be substantially less competent and committed than women without children. Competence ratings were 10% lower for mothers and commitment ratings were 15% lower for mothers. Mothers were much less likely to be deemed hireable/employable: 47% of mothers were recommended for hire compared to 84% of non-mothers. The recommended starting salary for mothers was $11,000 less than that offered to non-mothers (ibid, p1316). The authors argue that cultural understandings of the motherhood role conflict with cultural understandings of 20 Under British law it is illegal to deny training on the basis of pregnancy. 21 Such declarations are deemed unnecessary under British legislation (Young & Morrell, 2005a, p38). 22 The question only requires naming the entitlement and not the details (e.g. length of leave or amount of benefit etc). PAGE 22
Pregnancy and Employment: A Literature Review the ideal worker. The findings are judged to support the theory of status-based discrimination, which suggests that lower-status actors will be judged more harshly; because good performance among low-status actors runs counter to expectations, their performance is more critically scrutinised. In other words, “the standard used to evaluate workers is systematically biased in favour of high status groups” (Correll et al, 2007, p1302). 2.8 Conclusion Unfair treatment The studies outlined above suggest that pregnant women are indeed potentially exposed to a wide range of negative treatment in the workplace. Estimating the precise number of women who experience such problems is difficult. The cases that appear before legal tribunals represent only the tip of the iceberg. Probably the two most relevant estimates of the rate of such discrimination come from the 2007 National Maternity Rights Survey (MRS) (La Valle et al, 2008) and the EOC/Adams et al (2005) study. The MRS study found that 11% of women felt they had been treated unfavourably during pregnancy, while the EOC/Adams et al study estimated that 45% of women had experienced tangible discrimination. The results from the MRS are more statistically robust as they are based on a nationally representative random sample of women with young children, whereas the EOC study did not use a representative sampling frame. 23 The two studies also differ in the way in which the questions on discrimination or unfavourable treatment were framed. In the MRS, women had to respond spontaneously to a question on whether they had been treated unfairly due to their pregnancy, without any prompts as to what this treatment might have entailed. In contrast, the EOC study showed women a list of experiences and asked if any applied to them. The women themselves did not define the treatment as unfair or unfavourable. In neither case can it be established that the experiences reported would pass a legal threshold of discrimination. While the extent of the problem is difficult to measure precisely, the research provides a somewhat more consistent view of the factors associated with increased risk of discrimination or unfavourable treatment. Nevertheless, the results on risk factors are far from conclusive due to the relatively small number of studies carried out and the lack of representative data. We highlight below some of the results that have recurred across more than one of the studies described. Higher risk in private sector: A number of sources, including the survey of employers (Young & Morrell, 2005a), the legal case studies and the EOC survey (Adams et al, 2005) suggest that women in the private sector face a greater risk of unfair treatment during pregnancy compared to those working in the public sector. Greater adherence to equality policies and formal recruitment and human-resource practices, as well as greater awareness of regulations around pregnancy at work, may account for lower rates of discrimination in the public sector. It was also argued that public-sector employers might be more likely to settle discrimination cases before they reach the courts. Less risk with flexible-work-practices culture: Flexible work practices were found to be associated with better treatment of pregnant workers in a number of the studies. Both the EOC survey and the 1996 and 2007 Maternity Rights Surveys (Callender et al, 1997; La Valle et al, 2008) found that women in firms without flexible working arrangements were more likely to have experienced problems with their employer concerning their pregnancy and maternity leave. The provision of flexible working options is likely to indicate that the employer is aware of the competing demand facing employees outside of work and may also suggest a greater concern for employees’ welfare more generally. Higher risk in small firms: Differences between small and larger employers were found in Young and Morell’s study of employers as well as by Adams et al (2005). Women in small firms had a higher risk of discrimination and employers in smaller firms expressed more negative views about pregnant workers and about dealing with pregnancy in the workplace. This latter effect is partly structural as employers in small firms do not have the same resources to cover employees on maternity leave. 23 The EOC sample was reweighted to the relevant population but selection bias may remain a problem. PAGE 23
Page 1: Pregnancy and Employment: A Literat
Page 4 and 5: Published by the HSE Crisis Pregnan
Page 6 and 7: Foreword by the CEO of the Equality
Page 9 and 10: Table of Contents Introduction 1 Ch
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