Importance of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act

1790 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essays about importance of pregnancy

Women in today’s society want to have a career as well as a family, but there was a time when if a woman became pregnant, she had to quit her job. There was also the possibility of being fired by her employer once they knew she was pregnant. Many women kept their pregnancies a secret for as long as they could just to hold onto a job. This is starting to become an uncommon practice.
Women are continually entering the workforce in numerous areas with the same potential and qualifications as their male counterparts. For women, trying to find employment while being pregnant can be extremely frustrating and difficult. Sadly, a woman’s odds of being hired while pregnant are slim to none even though the firing practice is uncommon. Women have a fundamental right to have a family as well as a career. This is where the Pregnancy Discrimination Act comes into play. This paper will discuss the importance of this act and how it should be properly used.
Explanation of the Act and Its History
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 is an amendment to the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commision, 2008). Under the act, an employer cannot legally refuse to hire a woman if she is pregnant unless her condition makes it impossible for her to perform the major functions of the position. It is illegal for an employer of 15 or more employees, to discriminate against a person because of pregnancy, childbirth, or pregnancy-related conditions (The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2014). This means that employers must treat pregnancy the same way they treat any other temporary medical disability.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act does not require favored treatment for pregnant employees. The act...

... middle of paper ...

...omen if childbearing ages in the workplace. It will allow women to have families without fear of losing their jobs. This will help relieve the financial burden and the stress for the family.
Conclusion
Employers, managers, and Human Resources professionals must be aware of potential pregnancy discrimination issues in their organization. They need to be aware of these issues before they even arise. It is almost certain that an organization will deal with pregnancy discrimination issues, especially with more women obtaining careers. It is important to remember that pregnant employees are entitled to the same rights as non-pregnant employees. It is important for companies to promote equal employment opportunities for women. They need to guarantee them the right to contribute equally in the workplace without punishing them for exercising their right to have a family.

Show More
Related

  • Title IX

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    In many schools, women who became pregnant were often relegated to "alternative" educational programs, the participation in which was mandatory. After Title IX, schools could no longer force the student to go to an alternative school, which often was substandard. These students could not be sin...

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Title IX

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    Schools must provide equal access to school for pregnant and parenting students and treat pregnancy like any other interim disability. Schools also must provide equal access to extracurricular activities for pregnant and parenting students. This means that a school may not a school cannot require a doctor’s note for a pregnant student to participate in activities unless the school requires a doctor’s note from all students who have conditions that require medical care. School must excuse absences due to pregnancy or childbirth for as long as the the students doctor believes is medically necessary. School must also ensure that any separate programs or schools for pregnant and parenting students are spontaneous and offer opportunities equal to those offered for non-pregnant students. Title IX protects every person, boys and girls, men and women, and students and employees from sexual

    Read More

  • Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the single most important piece of legislation that has helped to shape and define employment law rights in this country (Bennett-Alexander & Hartman, 2001)". Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, gender, disability, religion and national origin. However, it was racial discrimination that was the moving force of the law that created a whirlwind of a variety of discriminations to be amended into Title VII. Title VII was a striving section of legislation, an effort which had never been tried which made the passage of the law an extremely uneasy task. This paper will discuss the evolution of Title VII as well as the impact Title VII has had in the workforce.

    Read More

  • Pregnancy Discrimination Act Case Study

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many cases are being brought to the Supreme Court because many companies and employers are not cooperating with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Just recently a young women working with UPS was forced into unpaid time off because she was pregnant and was told by her doctor she could not lift more than 20 pounds. She felt that she had been unfairly treated because UPS made accommodations for other workers with disabilities but didn’t offer to make accommodations for her. I think that even though the Pregnancy Discrimination Act is there, many companies and employers are not following it. It is not fair for women who become pregnant to be treated any differently than another worker who has a temporary disability. I think that congress should strengthen this act so that women are not forced to choose between their job and the health of their pregnancy and baby. I think that companies and employers who are not following the rules of this act should be punished in some way. One way could be that if they are not obeying this act, they could be fined. It would make them more likely to follow through and follow the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. With more and more women in the work force, it is obvious at some point a majority of these women will be

    Read More

  • Pregnancy In The Mennonite Culture

    1477 Words  | 3 Pages

    Pregnancy and the birth of a child throughout many cultures is viewed as a gift, either from God or from any other supernatural figure that they worship. If the pregnancy is terminated for any reason or there are complications it is also viewed in a large group of cultures as a punishment, or because you did not closely follow the rules or regulations of your culture. The process, emotional, and physical stress of bearing a child places mothers and family in a position of opportunity along with placing within them great responsibility. Mothers planning to bear children ideally need to be within the healthy weight range along with being well nourished, but this is not always the case. Many mothers to be are surprised when they realize or are

    Read More

  • The Workplace and Title Seven

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...overlooked in the workplace. Title VII has changed the pre-employment process in that the interviewer must be careful in the questions that are posed to the interviewee. The interviewer should not ask questions that can be deemed discriminatory. A rule of thumb is to limit questions that have to do with a person’s private life. As an employer, it must be made clear that discrimination will not be tolerated in the workplace. Employers and employees need to become familiar with what constitutes discrimination. Employees need to be informed of the employer’s position as it relates to workplace discrimination. An employer should adopt policies that address this issue in the form of employee handbooks and/or in house training for all employee levels, including what steps will be taken for violations. If the employer and employee work together to prevent these forms of discretions, it can help curtail some of the litigiousness surrounding this issue.

    Read More

  • Maternnity Leave

    1565 Words  | 4 Pages

    Women have the wonderful ability to bring a new life into this world and are granted maternity leave, a certain amount of time after birth to be away from the labor force. However, maternity leave was not always available to women because of the low levels of employed and educated females. In 1978 changing gender norms and increased female labor involvement influenced the passing of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibiting employment discrimination of women due to pregnancy (Smith, Downs, and O’Connell 3). After this legislation, a higher percentage of women in the United States were not only educated but also employed. In 1987, a critical Supreme Court case (California Federal Savings and Loan Association v. Guerra) in California defined

    Read More

  • What Is Equal Pay For Equal Work?

    917 Words  | 2 Pages

    Despite the passage of protective federal legislation in the forms of the Equal Pay Act in 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Acts of 1964, there still exists prominent gender discrimination in the workplace that negatively impacts career advancement for women. This is best seen through the case example of Ann Hopkins. Hopkins was denied a career advancement to partner status within Price Waterhouse solely based on her perceived femininity and not the quality of her previous work for the company. This incident occurred in 1982, roughly 20 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act and Title VII. Although the Equal Pay Act and Title VII have made great strides towards economic gender equality in the United States, they are by no means complete. The United States needs additional legislation in order to guarantee equal pay for equal work.

    Read More

  • Abortion: Pro-life!

    487 Words  | 1 Pages

    Every day, an overwhelming amount of human beings’ lives are terminated. The culprit: unwanted pregnancies. Many woman are (not by choice), becoming pregnant as a result of unsafe sex, rape, and other things. So what is one to do when they discover that they’re pregnant? They have some alternatives: (1) have the child and raise it (2) have the child, then give it up for adoption (3) get an abortion. Sadly, many women choose alternative three, unaware of what they’re getting themselves into.

    Read More

  • Abortion

    2358 Words  | 5 Pages

    ...forts to educate women about other options, such as adoption, should be extended. Furthermore, there should be an expansion of efforts to prevent unintended pregnancies. Such efforts should include programs for sexual education and the provision of contraceptives to sexually active females.

    Read More

  • Paid Parental Leave

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    Recently women’s rights and women’s equality in the workplace has come back to the fore as a topic for discussion in government agencies and the United Nations. Whilst this is a very important topic, when it comes to time off from work when a new child is born, women in the US have some provision, whereas men have none.

    Read More

  • Discrimination In The Workplace Essay

    1244 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rather, it was added to the law by the opposition in an attempt to prevent the law from gaining the necessary vote to be instated. The little discussion concerning the matter of gender discrimination left courts with very little information to assist them in interpreting the law. (BL 348) Today courts generally “have determined that gender discrimination also includes discrimination due to pregnancy and sexual harassment, but not because of affinity orientation or being transgender.” (pg.348) Given with the passing of time, it is also natural for individuals to imagine just how prevalent gender discrimination is in our society but as stated by EEOC’s chairman in 2009, “sex discrimination against males and females alike continues to be a problem in the 21st century.”(pg. 338 – EEOC press release.) Gender itself plays a prominent role in our lives in the form of stereotypes, customs and ideas which are often discriminatory in nature, whether intentional or not. Of the two genders, women continue to be the most affected by gender discrimination and even as the number of woman in high positions continues to grow, they are still a proportionately large number of filled claims. (pg.338-339). According to a report released by the EEOC in 2010, “gender suits account for the second highest percentage of substantive claims brought under Title VII, behind race.” (#9, EEOC

    Read More

  • Abortion in the United States

    3510 Words  | 8 Pages

    Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)

    Read More

  • Discrimination of Women in the Workplace

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since the time women were eligible to be an employee of a workplace, they have become victims of discrimination. Discrimination is the practice of treating a person or group of people differently from other people (Webster, 2013). Thousands of women have suffered from discrimination in workplaces because they are pregnant, disabled, or of the opposite sex. It is crazy to think that someone would fire a woman because she became pregnant and needed to have some work adjustments ("Pregnancy and parenting,"). A woman goes through a lot to give birth to children, and men will never understand the complications a mother encounters during the pregnancy. Sadly, males think that pregnant women don’t make a working hand, which is totally wrong.

    Read More

  • Why Men Should Get Paternity Leave?

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bringing a new baby into the world is one life changing experience. The lives of both the mother and the father are changed tremendously as they begin to learn to raise a child by trial and error. Maternity leave for mothers of newborns is never disagreeable; when it comes to paternity leave, however, it becomes one of the most controversial topics of the workforce. Reasons for maternity leaves and paternity leaves are both justifiable. Men should have the opportunity to take paternity leave from their jobs so that they can be a helping hand to the mother, have a chance to bond with their newborn child, and help bridge the gap in gender equality in the workplace without the stigma and criticism. After the birth of the child, women can become emotionally and physically fatigued, so men take an important role as care giver and supporter, especially in the first few weeks. If a father has an opportunity to stay home for the first couple of weeks, to care for both the mother and his new child, it will make a big impact for the family.

    Read More

More about Importance of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act

Open Document