Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace – What You Can Do

Pregnancy is supposed to be a joyous, exciting time in the lives of women. Nine months of carrying their son or daughter and caring for them is a big deal and with that brings a lot of stress and worry. The last thing a woman wants to do is add problems at work to that, but unfortunately this is a sad reality that women are being fired, laid off, or refused being hired, promoted or receiving pay raises due to their pregnancy.

In a perfect world, people would be hired based on ability to work without regard to any outside characteristic such as sex, race, orientation, medical problems, hair color, nationality, or because they are pregnant or have kids. However, pregnancy discrimination is a serious problem that women face that only adds to the problem of sexism that is still widespread in society even today.

Pregnancy and the Law

The amendment to the Civil Rights Act added pregnancy as a protected characteristic in 1978: “because of or on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; and women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment-related purposes.” The Pregnancy Act also makes sure that women are covered on employer’s insurance policies, and that they cannot be punished for going on maternity leave. However, this is still a big problem in the workplace. Most employers do not have pregnancy discrimination in their handbooks. People don’t talk about pregnancy discrimination, and it is hard to provide evidence for especially in cases of not being hired or denied higher pay due to being pregnant.

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