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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Pregnancy and Employment: A Literature Review Table 4.1: Occupational mobility among female labour market re-entrants in Ireland by time since last job Time since last job Under 2 years 2 – 4.9 years 5 – 9.9 years Over 10 years Downward (%) 23.1 35.0 34.1 41.8 Stable (%) 59.6 53.3 45.5 41.2 Upward (%) 17.3 11.7 20.5 16.9 100 100 100 100 Total N 1 104 60 44 177 1 The figures refer to the number of transitions rather than number of respondents. Source: Russell et al, 2009. Occupational mobility among women with short career breaks A number of research studies on pregnancy and maternity experiences in the workplace focus on samples of women who are interviewed relatively soon after childbirth, usually between about nine months and two years. These studies provide important insights into women’s transitions following childbirth, but the time-frame of the surveys means that the career costs of childbirth for those taking longer breaks are not included in the results. The research by Adams et al (2005) described above shows that returning to the same employer after childbearing is crucial to maintaining occupational status. The research covers women whose babies were aged between 9 and 12 months at interview. Of the women who had returned to work within this period, 87% had returned to the same employer, but almost two-thirds of this group (62%) had reduced hours on their return. One-fifth (20%) of women reported earning less per hour than they had before their pregnancy, a further 27% reported the same hourly earnings, and 44% earned more. Three-quarters (74%) of women returning to the same employer were employed in the same type of work and at the same level as in their previous job, 12% returned to a different type of job, 5% returned to the same work at a higher level, and 5% returned to the same work at a lower level. The incidence of downward occupational mobility was higher for the 13% of women who did not return to the same employer; 14% went from a permanent to a nonpermanent position and 12% were involved in the same type of work at a lower level. It is significant that this level of downgrading is evident among women who returned to work relatively soon after the birth of their child. Also in the UK, the 2002 Maternity Rights Survey (Hudson et al, 2004) found that 59% of women returned to the same job with the same employer, which is significantly lower than the rate found in other studies of this type. Women were surveyed 13 to 16 months after the birth of their child, so this study is more likely to include women who took longer leave than the statutory provision and who thus did not have the right to return to the same job. Those in the public sector were more likely to have returned to the same job and employer than those in the private sector. Returning to the pre-birth employer was also more common among non-first-time mothers, older mothers, those in higher-paying jobs pre-birth and those who had previously worked part-time. 35 A total of 80% of those who changed jobs or employers had done so voluntarily, and 20% because their old job was not available. However, the authors note that it is not clear if this latter group of women had been offered and turned down an appropriate alternative or if they had been denied rights under maternity law (Hudson et al, 2004, p115). The most recent maternity rights survey in the UK provides some greater detail on the jobs women enter on their return to employment. Only 14% of women who had returned to work within 18 months had changed jobs (and employers), while 86% returned to the same job. Just under 40% of women decreased their working hours after the birth. The authors do not present information on occupational change, but they find few shifts in contract-type or supervisory status following resumption of employment. Only 3% of mothers had moved from a permanent prebirth job to a temporary position after returning to work (ibid, Table 5.6), while just 3% reported a loss in supervisory responsibilities. A total of 22% of returners recorded a drop in weekly earnings, but hourly pay levels were not reported and this figure is lower than the proportion of women who reduced their hours of work (La Valle et al, 2008) 35 Note there are no models to assess how these factors overlap or operate independently. PAGE 40
Pregnancy and Employment: A Literature Review Most of the studies of the occupational effects of taking time out of the labour market to care for children are limited to the first job after return. Therefore, rather little is known about the sustainability of these jobs and whether, on their return to work, women manage to regain any of the losses experienced. However there are a number of significant exceptions, including the Macran et al study of British women (1996). They found that the length of the gap had little effect on the possibility of leaving the job within one year but after one year those who returned to work sooner were more likely to stay in work longer. Studies of the motherhood pay penalty (outlined below) suggest that the negative effects of time out of the labour market on pay are persistent and long-term. The cross-national study by Russell et al (2006) (described in Chapter 3) examined the medium-term effects of time spent out of the labour market around childbirth in Ireland, Germany, Sweden and the UK, using national longitudinal data-sets. By looking at these effects five years and seven years after the birth, it examines whether disadvantages persist over time, while the comparative element of the study highlights possible institutional influences on the persistence of inequalities. The results show that, after five years, women in Britain and Ireland who had a birth in the first year of the panel had significantly lower occupational scores than women with similar characteristics who did not have a birth. A significant difference between those who had and had not given birth was observable seven years later in Britain and Sweden. This effect is in addition to the negative effect of having other children aged under 16 at year 0, which is significant in Ireland, Britain and Germany. These negative effects are also additional to the decline in status associated with reduced labour-market experience. It is argued that the absence of this effect for mothers in Germany supports the hypothesis that extended periods of leave help to preserve the occupational position of those who re-enter employment. However, the negative effect of having a birth on women’s occupational status found in Sweden, seven years after the birth, suggests that extensive maternity protection in that country did not protect mothers from this disadvantage. The study found no medium-term effects of births on women’s wages five years after the birth, but the length of time in the labour market between the first and fifth interviews was found to be significant (Russell et al, 2006). These cross-national comparisons provide some support for the view that providing maternity and parental leave reduces occupational downgrading by guaranteeing employment at the same level and by increasing job tenure. Occupational downgrading and part-time work The studies outlined above highlight that a significant proportion of women reduce their hours or work parttime following childbirth. It has recently been argued that the move into part-time work is one of the primary mechanisms behind occupational downgrading among women in Britain (Connolly & Gregory, 2008). Using data from the New Earnings Panel Survey (NESPD) and the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) 36 , Connolly & Gregory examined all transitions from full-time to part time work in consecutive years among women aged 22 to 59 years of age between 1991 and 2001. The restriction of the analysis to transitions in consecutive years means that women who move to part-time work following a break of longer than one year are not included. 37 The 15-point occupational ranking used in the study is based on the average qualification level of incumbents calculated from the Labour Force Survey. This leads to some differences from standard occupational and class hierarchies, most notably by having teachers at the top of the hierarchy, and the placement of corporate managers below Nurses and other associate professionals. The authors found that in their two samples, 8% (NESPD) and 17% (BHPS) of women who switched into parttime work were downwardly mobile. However, this figure was considerably higher for those who also changed employer-“movers”-33% (NESPD) and 41% (BHPS) than among those who changed to part-time hours with the same employer-“stayers”-(between 6% and 17%). Since these women have worked continuously or taken a break of only one year the authors argue that this “is the rosier part of the picture” (ibid. F73). Multinomial regression analysis confirmed that controlling for other relevant factors, there is a high risk of downward mobility for movers, while transitions to part-time work that did not involve a change of employer were associated with a much smaller (though still statistically significant) risk of downgrading. 36 The NESPD has a very big sample size (over 70,000 women per year), while the BHPS has a smaller sample (N women approx 2500 per year) but a much richer set of variables. 37 The BHPS records Maternity leave and this is treated as continuous employment, while in the NESPD gaps of a single year are treated as consecutive. PAGE 41
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
Page 11 and 12: Pregnancy and Employment: A Literat
Page 49: Pregnancy and Employment: A Literat

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?