Arrrg! It seems inevitable that if you're a woman of a certain age range you're going to encounter this kind of prejudice, but if men were granted equal paternity rights and responsibilities in the eyes of employers, at least this might somehow cancel out... However I wonder if most men would even take advantage of those opportunities, or if they would succumb to the same pressures that keep women on their employers' timetables.

Yeah. My buddy just survived 2 weeks of prodromal labor and a late delivery, in which she was at wits' end about what to do about 2 upcoming job interviews. She was willing to do the interviews even if she remained in prodromal labor, But was certain she would face discrimination. This concern was well founded. She was earlier told that she had been refused a job because she disclosed that she was pregnant. So she faced blatant discrimination despite her choice of a "pink collar" profession.

I, on the other hand, am in a field in which it is widespread wisdom that pregnancy spells doom for advancement (or even getting to Square 1, really).

My buddy and I are on 2 ends of the same shitty stick. My head burns with rage for this issue.

The solution as I see it is for society at large (who gets the benefit) to compensate employers for a larger portion of the real or perceived cost of hiring those who they don't want to hire. IOW, rather than expecting people to choose ethics over profits (an expectation which never works,) make them the same choice. It is certainly possible to drive behavior with economics.

To use an extreme hypothetical, let's say that we told employers
"We want you to hire more of _______ [insert category of people] at your business. We will pay you every penny that it costs you extra to hire/accommodate/train/replace those individuals, and will give you a $20,000 bonus if they leave inside a year."

Does anyone disagree that people would be seeking out 25 year old women, with the hopes of collecting the bonus?

Instead, we allow the laws to transfer costs to the employers, and dutifully complain that people do their best to circumvent the laws.

Well, duh: The benefits of women being able to find employment irrespective of their age and pregnancy status are huge, but are spread across society as a whole. However, the costs of someone leaving the job (considering retraining, etc.) are, while not as large, borne specifically by the employer. Of course they'll try to get around them.

It's like any other moral/economic issue: Employers are forced to choose between acting ethically and acting profitably. Very few of them will choose the ethical model. We know that applies everywhere else, pretty much. We shouldn't be surprised that it applies here.

Now, most times when I propose this someone accuses me of supporting discrimination. Let me be clear: I would like to fix the hiring issue. I just think that the best way to fix it involves:
1) being up front about the cost of accommodations, whatever they are; and
2) addressing the costs in a manner that either neutralizes them or makes them equitable enough to be ignored.

Darn, posted accidentally. To continue:

Try the unspecified example: would you hire someone if you knew she/he was going to leave for some unspecified reason within six months of starting employment?

Applying only business principles who here would hire someone if you knew he or she would leave within six months?

Anyone? We're hoping to beat 25% here, folks.

Now, if you add morality there are all sorts of "good" reasons to leave: maybe she's getting pregnant, or joining the Peace Corps, or donating a kidney to a dying child, or running for office against a Republican, or anything else that floats your boat.

So if you consider the "good" reasons, we might well hire someone in the above categories. But it's obvious that there's a balance to be made. And when there's a balance, sometimes one side is going to lose: if you want to change that fact, you need to put a thumb on the balance, i.e. add money.

I am not suprised. I have read elsewhere that in the UK, a woman who gets pregnant can take up to a year in maternity leave, paid, while her position remains open for her. In other words, I could get hired, leave six months later, require them to hire temp workers (meanwhile, training them for a job they can't keep) and then quit on my 364th day of ML.

It really sucks because there are plenty of young women who will never have children, or women with supportive partners who will not miss much if any work, and we are being discriminated against for our age and gender, really.

I also agree with Sailorman. Most businesses don't want to have to hire someone new when they just spent the time hiring you.

I am totally convinced that the last time I was unemployed, one of the reasons it took me so much longer to find a job than I'd expected was because even if I had a good interview and had all the right skills, I was 30 and potential employers were thinking "But I bet she's going to be starting a family any day now".

Made me wish it was acceptable to say "By the way, I do not like children, am never going to have any, should I get pregnant tomorrow I would have an abortion. Thanks for your time."

wow, i'm really fucking screwed when i get out of college. (and i'm only 16.)

how in the world am i going to find a job at this rate?

I am terrified about moving into the job market again. My fiance and I are moving across the country this summer, and we're planning to get married in February. We have no current plans for starting a family (and, like june, if I became pregnant at this point in my life I'd probably head out for an abortion), but I'm sure if a potential employer knew about my impending wedding date it'd be much harder for me to get in the door.

I think I really have to consider leaving my engagement ring at home when I go interviewing....

For those who think hiring pregnant women or women who might have children is such an imposition on an employer, please don't forget that people of both sexes quit jobs all the time for seemingly frivolous reasons. At my work, a man recently left (with no plans of coming back) after only working here for five months. It was unclear why he left, but it seemed like maybe he wanted to find himself. I, on the other hand, started working here when I was seven months pregnant. (They didn't know I was pregnant when I was offered the job, but I told them before I accepted to make sure we could work something out.) I returned after two months maternity leave (for which the company paid nothing - in most states in the US employers pay nothing for any family or medical leave, though obviously there is cost to do my job while I'm out), and two years later, I am a valued employee who consistently gets good reviews and has no plans to go anywhere. They're very glad they hired me, though I suspect they had serious concerns at the time and may have withdrawn the offer if they weren't worried about a lawsuit. But in the end, it worked out, because they got the right person for the job and I got a job I like.

This is a risk employers take every time they hire someone. The person might not work out. They might change their mind. They might come down with cancer. They might get killed in a car wreck. Or they might have a baby. In all of these cases, the employer would have to replace the person, temporarily or permanently. I am constantly amazed and infuriated to see this "well, it's such a hardship for the employer" argument used to justify discrimination against the one half of the population that happens to be responsible for gestation (of future workers, no less!).

sailorman, your premise has value ONLY if you consider that an employee is much like a serviceable piece of machinery- that they produce at a certain rate throughout their time at the company and that any foreseen issues (impending marriage, pregnancy) will impede said production rate at a specified pace and the absence of said machine will negatively affect production. In other words, remove all HUMAN aspect from the selection process and I would agree with you. But that is obviously not the case. Pregnancy can be difficult, and of course there is an increased risk in use of disability / sick time and the impending leave of absence. However, the assumption that a pregnant interviewee will make a poor employee is sad for a few reasons.
1) most women interviewing while pregnant will not be able to use the company's insurance policies thanks to BS preexisting conditions. So this fear that pregnant women are looking for a short work experience just to milk the company is ridiculous.

2)Add to that the seriously flawed FMLA and a person who is interviewing while pregnant is never going to qualify for FMLA thanks to the 52 week requirement.

3) Most employee maternity policies consist of disability only, which is no cost to the employer while the leave is being taken (it's part of the insurance).

Now if you take into account the human aspect of employees (and working moms) you can easily deduce that a woman interviewing during a life-change is obviously not doing so to take care of some perceived benefits- they are not likely to go through the rigamarole of interviewing/ changing jobs unless they are fairly certain to stay once the leave is concluded.

While I understand that the 6 week to 3 month leave period may seem daunting, I can only speak for my friends and myself in that I have never worked harder to be prepared for any time off in my life than the last 2 months before I gave birth. I made it so simple, an idiot could follow my instructions and get things done- unfortunately for me, I made it too simple and trained my temp too well, so that when I got back, it was decided within 6 months that a breastfeeding new mom wasn't what the company really wanted and they'd rather have the temp I trained and prepared, but you know... whatevs.

If employers really wanted to "protect" themselves from those scheming potential mommas, they'd just avoid hiring women from age 25-35, especially if they have a ring or some other sign of a relationship. And that would be pretty damn scary.

I can understand completely why an employer would not want to hire someone who would leave in 6 months for an amount of time, have to hold a job open, have to in the case of the UK pay the other person, and have to hire a temp. It's not fair to women. Which is why we need progressive paternity policies.

Men should have the same leave rights as women. It should become as culturally expected for men to care for a baby as a woman. I believe that if men could they would take the leave time. And I also believe if this leave time was available more women would feel empowered to demand that sort of parental involvement from the fathers. This is the only path to gender equality in the workplace. When a 30 year old man walks into an office to apply for a new job an employer will be just as hesitant to hire him. Ideally, no employer will think of a family as a burden to business. But right now, I think employers look at men of childbearing age as a man committed to the job and deserving of more pay because he is supporting a family.

sorry for the egads triple post!!! my internet connection today is wacky.

"I can understand completely why an employer would not want to hire someone who would leave in 6 months for an amount of time, have to hold a job open, have to in the case of the UK pay the other person, and have to hire a temp. It's not fair to women. Which is why we need progressive paternity policies.

"Men should have the same leave rights as women."

Yeah!

OTOH, I can also understand wanting to give more time off to the one who's recovering from birth.

Hmm.

What if parental leave was gender-neutral and equal for every worker starting to take care of a child (whether female or male or intersex, whether having the child biologically or adopting, whether the child's parent or grandparent who just got custody or some other guardian, etc.) and there was additional medical leave for the ones who just gave birth (instead of adopting or having his or her partner give birth)?

lilianna, before I respond I want to make something clear: I do not think the current system is acceptable.

That said, before I even get to the meat of your post:

You seem very blase about the difficulties of hiring and training people. I don't know if you know the background costs, but they're pretty huge.

Let's use me as an example.

If I hire a secretary, I have to train him for six months before I can trust him to do good work unsupervised. In case I'm not being clear, in the first six months of employment, my secretary--like many new hires at higher level jobs--is probably only producing 50% of what I pay him. The higher-paying and more advanced the job is, the longer that the buy-in period tends to be; a new legal associate can take well over a year to start turning a profit.

If my secretary leaves to take care of his kids, and wants his job back in three months, I have to hire a new secretary to replace him.

So: you think I can do that cost-free?

Because it's a temp job, I have to use a temp company and pay through the nose. And of course the new guy won't be trained, so not only is he expensive but he's much less useful, which adds a lot to the costs through inefficiency. I'm paying a higher hourly rate AND I'm less efficient.

On the other hand, if I want my current secretary to train the new guy before he leaves, I've got to pay double during training time. And any time/money that I DO invest in training the new guy gets wasted at the end of the three months... unless, that is, I keep the new guy and don't rehire the old secretary, which is generally illegal and scummy to boot.

Keeping the new guy is usually much cheaper: I don't have to pay temp agency rates and my training isn't wasted. But it's scummy, so I don't do it.

Nonetheless, if my secretary were to take a three month leave, it'd probably cost me, personally, in the range of $10-20,000 to cover for him, once I add up all the direct and incidental costs.

And that's just a SECRETARY. Consider it if it's a manager, who has 10 years of accumulated company knowledge.

Still want to suggest that it's cost free?

And BTW: This same phenomenon applies to MEN. Did you know that? Except for men, it's military issues.

Some military men have trouble finding jobs, because their employers are less than willing to hire and train them, only to have the men involved leave for duty. Similarly, some landlords will try to avoid renting to military people, because they can break leases with some extra protection.

Just as with women, the discrimination against military men is technically illegal... and nonetheless widespread.

The reasons are the same. It's universal.

The point I am getting at is that the discrimination is bad and needs to stop.

HOWEVER, we aren't ever going to effectively stop it by sticking our heads in the sand and claiming that there's absolutely no effect whatsoever to an employee taking time off or leaving the company.

I think it is horrible that women are discriminated against, but I think it is important to understand and acknowledge the reasons WHY, because saying "don't discriminate!" is a hell of a lot less effective than changing the reasons.

Totally agree with Sailorman. It's not that the companies are trying to discriminate against women qua women, it's that they are avoiding higher-cost workers.

There are costs of training and costs of replacing employees. There are also health insurance costs (HIPAA mandates that the new health plan pick up any preexisting conditions if there is less than 63 days between old and new coverage); those are very, very significant when you're talking about labour and delivery.

Here's another solution, one that I think would benefit women in a lot of ways: make men (and, by extension, their health insurance) jointly and severally liable for the costs of labour and delivery. Of course, yes, it is the woman's body; but the ONLY REASON she has that cost is because of the mutual child. This would make it easier on women who want to have a child but feel that even that part of it is financially unfeasible. It acknowledges the fact that, once born, the child is the joint responsibility of both parents; while men cannot biologically gestate a child, there is no reason to not split that which can be split. As applicable to this discussion, it would reduce the health care costs that women impose upon companies (many of whom pay the expenses themselves, and have a health care plan act as an administrator) and increase the cost that men impose, thereby reducing the potential cost disparity between hiring a man and a woman.

While I know that discrimination exists, we ought to separate discrimination (hating on women, old people, gays, etc) with sound economic judgment. Then, we ought to figure out how to make the economics work. Expecting people to do that which is unprofitable is expecting them to operate at a loss, which is, in the long run, to not operate at all.

I had a great interview - the kind where the interviewer pretty much tells you you've got the job - and then didn't get it. I was baffled. Then I found out that one of the interviewers knew someone I knew, who mentioned I was pregnant. Nice, eh? Best yet, it was for a left-wing political party.

I'm still angry. Almost 3 years later. I had to go back to school while pregnant because I couldn't get a job and couldn't afford my student loan payments (you don't have to pay while in school, and tuition costs less than my payments do).

Bastards. And what kills me is I just don't want to vote for the bastards after that, but OTOH, they're still the least of three evils.

Two years ago I would have agreed how horrible this situation was, how we shouldn't discriminate against pregnant women, yada, yada, yada. But that was before IT happened, IT being a close co-worker got pregnant and was sick much of her pregnancy. There were 2.5 positions, I had one, she had one, the other .5 was vacant. With her gone it was just me. I had little to no on the job training, but since I knew our physical area better than most, I quickly discovered I had to take over all duties WITHOUT EXTRA PAY. Overtime was only for when they needed a physical body in her place when someone wasn't available to fill in for the shift, which wasn't often enough to compensate. I would simply have to find the time during my day to fit everything in, and everyone in the building had to put in extra out front time to cover for her. I won't mention how many times I cried in the shower. I won't mention my response when she came in on her last day of maternity leave to announce she was not coming back. Because she waited to make the announcement it took an additional two months to replace her. Now it's easy to say a boss should hire women who will get pregnant in 6 months, but how many of you are in turn willing to fill in for her while they hold her position? Several times I came very close to a nervous breakdown. I love babies, I'll birth/adopt a few one day, but Satan will ice skate before I'd hire a woman who would get pregnant before she's had time to prove herself on the job or show me she's willing to come back after the baby is born.

Here's another solution, one that I think would benefit women in a lot of ways: make men (and, by extension, their health insurance) jointly and severally liable for the costs of labour and delivery.

Uh?

Post-conception, the man has no say over whether there's actually a child born or not. And you're proposing that he be held responsible for the cost of a choice that is ultimately not his to make?

Of course, yes, it is the woman's body; but the ONLY REASON she has that cost is because of the mutual child.

Well, that and the separate decision to bear the child to term.

Here's another solution, one that I think would benefit women in a lot of ways: make men (and, by extension, their health insurance) jointly and severally liable for the costs of labour and delivery.

Uh?

Post-conception, the man has no say over whether there's actually a child born or not. And you're proposing that he be held responsible for the cost of a choice that is ultimately not his to make?

Of course, yes, it is the woman's body; but the ONLY REASON she has that cost is because of the mutual child.

Well, that and the separate decision to bear the child to term.

Callibrarian, think about what you are saying. You say "Satan will skate on ice" before you would hire a woman who would get pregnant before she's had time to prove herself. How long does it take for an employee to prove herself? Six months? A year? Well, pregnancy is not always planned. Basically, you are saying you wouldn't hire any woman because of the actions of one woman. Really, the only thing she did "wrong" was not give the employer a heads up that she wasn't coming back. That, I agree, is wrong. But that's not how most women conduct themselves in the workplace. I also find it interesting that you blame her for being sick, but not your employer for not hiring a temp. You don't say if you are American, but most leave here is unpaid, so the employer has some money freed up to cover at least some temp costs.

But my larger point is that life happens. Last year, at my work, a man who had been working at the company for less than six months received a cancer diagnosis and took two months off to undergo chemotherapy. All the rest of us had to pitch in to cover his work. We received no extra pay for this. He recovered and came back, but he might not have. But it wouldn't make any sense for me to say Satan will skate on ice before I'd hire a man who would come down with cancer before he had a chance to prove himself.

I know a lot of the folks posting here don't have kids and really can only see this in terms of how employers might incorrectly think that they'd skip out or how they've been affected when a co-worker took leave. But what this is about is our right to exist as human beings outside of our utility to our employers. It's not reasonable for employers to expect us to simply cease living the rest of our lives, including whatever unexpected things may come up, in exchange for employment.

All of this discussion of (further!!) accomodating the needs of employers strikes me as a bit bizarre. Why exactly should we be even more accomodating to people who are fighting tooth and nail to make it as easy as possible to fire employees, and do treat them like replaceable pieces of machinery.

I'm not sure what the situation is in the UK, where the survey was conducted, but here in the States, practically all employment is "at will" (i.e., at the employer's will). Every employee in this country without a fixed-term employment agreement goes to bed not knowing for sure whether she will have a job when she wakes up (the polite term for this is "workforce mobility and flexibility"). So why exactly should employees be expected to show a greater degree of loyalty and accomodation towards employers than the employers are willing to show to them?

"Last year, at my work, a man who had been working at the company for less than six months received a cancer diagnosis and took two months off to undergo chemotherapy." chingona

So he chose to have cancer?

In the example they won't be leaving within six months. They'll fall pregnant, so will leave between 9 and 15 months.

The UK's situation is very difficult. With a years maternity leave and a right to flexible working you can have a situation where you hire someone to a full time position who then takes maternity leave, you then have to hire a temp to replace them, and when they return part-time have to hire a permanent part-time position to get the other half of the job done. It can even be worse, because if you have any uncertainty around how long maternity leave will last you may have to hire multiple temps.

"Post-conception, the man has no say over whether there's actually a child born or not."

Legally? Usually. Realistically? Men very often have a significant say in whether a child with their genes is born...

noname, don't be dense. Of course he didn't chose to have cancer. Some women don't choose to get pregnant. They may chose not to have an abortion, but I don't think requiring women with unplanned pregnancies to have abortions to avoid inconveniencing their bosses is really somewhere we want to go.

To repeat, since you obviously failed reading comprehension: "But my larger point is that life happens. ... It's not reasonable for employers to expect us to simply cease living the rest of our lives, including whatever unexpected things may come up, in exchange for employment."

I am sick to death of this idea, so popular among commenters here, that because some people have access to birth control and abortion, that no accommodation should be made whatsoever to the existence of children. You all claim to be feminists, but what you propose would mean that any woman who wants a family should stop working a year before she thinks she would want to be pregnant and not seek employment until at least a year after the last one is born to avoid inconveniencing a single soul with the matter of her gestation, birth, recovery from said and subsequent care-taking of small humans. That's not my feminism.

chingona - You can't have it both ways. I am all for legal birth control and abortion, but if these conditions are met than it is not fair to pretend that having a baby is not a choice. And yes, life does happen. That does not mean that a business should have to subsidize your choices while you do nothing for them.

If I get cancer and need to spend some time in a hospital, that is not my choice.

If I have a baby or want to go to travel around Europe for awhile, that is my choice.

chingona - You can't have it both ways. I am all for legal birth control and abortion, but if these conditions are met than it is not fair to pretend that having a baby is not a choice. And yes, life does happen. That does not mean that a business should have to subsidize your choices while you do nothing for them (at least not without a minimum time working at said company, a reasonable limit to time off taken, and government subsidies to cover salary requirements).

1. I'm pro-life. So telling me that the woman can abort doesn't make me give a crap.

2. If the woman doesn't want the kid, she can give it up for adoption. Most of the time, she is trying to not be PREGNANT, which is a different thing (although related) with not wanting a kid. The purpose of the abortion is to make her not pregnant, not to eliminate the child. While you may think that this is semantically untenable, consider that, with late-term abortion, the babies are approaching viability. Viability will continue to move back in time. Some feminist scholars have proposed that the "right" to abort be replaced with the right to end the pregnancy.

noname, your "can't have it both ways" is a false dichotomy. For women who want children and want to work (which is the majority of women), what would you like them to do? Is it okay to have a baby after working somewhere for a year? For two years? I've worked at my job for three years. Should I ask my boss if that is an acceptable interval to have another child? It's going to be a pain in his ass no matter how long I work here. My husband has been at his job just a year. Should he ask his boss for permission, given that he would want to take leave as well?

And to correct for umpteenth time what seems to be a very common misconception: Employers in the United States are not required to offer paid leave. Most of them don't. They are not required to hold a job for more than three months. Most of them won't. They are not required to hold jobs for people who have worked there for less than a year. That is, if you have worked somewhere less than a year, you have no FMLA rights whatsoever. That means, noname, that all your conditions already have been met, except for the government subsidies to cover paid leave, because there is no paid leave. Any businesses going above and beyond the legal requirements are doing so because they think it makes them MORE COMPETITIVE in attracting quality workers. Any companies doing the bare minimum don't need your help to come up with more justifications for discriminating against women of reproductive age.

I don't really get all these "pregnancy is a choice" arguments. Isn't that an argument anti-choicers use to argue against abortion? Why don't women use birth control or not have sex so they don't have to have abortions? Just like women should have the choice to abort, shouldn't they should be able to realize they actually want the unplanned baby without worrying about their jobs?

In Switzerland they have 8 months of maternity leave to be split between both parents. It is mandatory that the father take at least three months. Woot!

Employers aren't supposed to discriminate against people in the armed forces reserve either, but they sure do.

I remember hearing on NPR (this was during the posturing before the misbegotten invasion of Iraq) about an armed forces reservist (male) who was turned down 25 times for jobs. Excuses ran the whole gambit: overqualified, they didn't think his ride was dependable, etc, etc,

This society is really fouled up when it comes to worker's rights. These corporations are literally walking away with our standard of living and our infrastructure.

I live in Michigan and it's the worst. #1 it's an "at will" state, meaning you work "at the will" of yourself and your employer. You can quit with no notice for no reason, and she can fire you with no notice for no reason NO REASON. In other words you can do your job PERFECTLY and still have no safety.
#2 we have both income tax and sales tax, and I think I read we're in the top ten highest in both.
#3 The cost of living in Michigan is THROUGH THE ROOF, housing cigarettes, and everything is real expensive here.
#4 the mainstay of the economy (here) the autmotive industry is getting it's but kicked by Imports.

I think I heard Michigan had a net exodus of 300,000 people last year.

I here Texas, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona are super hot job markets right now.

The current approach to fixing employment discrimination against women is misguided, whether or not you think that employers should be entitled to large profits.

Individual employers who are making a decision whether or not to discriminate will almost always do so if it is profitable for them. We can see that through current example, easily. Moreover, the efforts to enforce it are not working well at all.

The solution is to fund the employers for the difference in costs to replace whoever you want to protect--women, the disabled, everyone, anyone; your choice.

Admittedly, this may seem difficult. Such an approach requires admitting that which many people insist is false: that employees who leave do cost employers money; that providing benefits to certain classes of people is not cost-free.*

But the benefits are huge. And it works whether or not you are pro-employer:

If you think that such "refunds" for coverage are giving the employers too much profit, then you can reclaim it through general business -specific taxation.

In such a case, you will STILL see the benefits of neutrality: because an employer's decision to hire any particular individual person will not make any discernible difference in the taxes which the employer pays. It's just like the "tragedy of the commons," except in reverse--more like a "BENEFIT of the commons."

Or if you think that the employers can't handle all the costs being transferred to them, then you can spread the tax across society at large, instead of limiting it to employers. You will still see the benefits of the commonality issue.

In either case, a well structured combination of benefits and taxes may allow the U.S. to extend such programs and rulings to smaller employers, who are now exempt from such regulation. This, too, would represent a huge gain in equality hiring.

*This still remains a feminist argument: the reasons for those differences are firmly rooted in millenia of gender presumptions. It's still sexism, and it can still be fought.

Chingona – Carrying a pregnancy to term is definitely a choice if there exists a legal alternative. As for US law: great. Those seem like reasonable protections. If some companies are choosing to go above and beyond those basic protections in order to attract talent, even better. Of course, the original post talks about a UK survey. The UK protections are out of hand, in my opinion.