A Report on Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in the Workplace

This report investigates the pervasive issue of discrimination against pregnant women in the workplace. It begins with an introduction and background, highlighting the challenges faced by pregnant women in various work environments. The research objectives include assessing employer awareness of pregnant women's rights and identifying the reasons behind workplace discrimination. The methodology involves interviews with human resource managers and employers, alongside investigations with pregnant women who have experienced discrimination. The findings reveal that smaller organizations often replace pregnant employees, while larger companies and public sectors generally adhere to maternity rights. The report discusses these findings, emphasizing the need for organizations to understand and implement the Equality Act to ensure fair treatment. It concludes with a call for organizations to prioritize the rights of pregnant women and to create a supportive work environment. The report also includes a list of questions used in the interviews, a timetable of activities, and references to relevant literature.

Discrimination Against Pregnant women In The Work Place 1
DISCRIMINATION AGAINIST PREGNANTWOMEN IN THE WORK PLACE
By [Student Name]
Course
Instructor
Institution
State
Date

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Discrimination against Pregnant Women in the Work Place
Table of Contents
Discrimination against Pregnant Women in the Work Place..........................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Background......................................................................................................................................2
Main Objectives of the Research.....................................................................................................3
Methodology....................................................................................................................................3
(i) Stage one.................................................................................................................................3
(ii) Stage two................................................................................................................................4
Result and Feedback........................................................................................................................4
List of questions...............................................................................................................................5
Timetable.........................................................................................................................................5
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................7

Discrimination Against Pregnant women In The Work Place 3
Background
According to most of the people, the workplace is one of the areas in which they face
discrimination. Majority of the women face discrimination in their workplace especially in case of
pregnancy (Little et al. 2015). It, therefore, becomes imperative to examine the ways through which
women who are pregnant have been discriminated, why they are discriminated, and how laws have been
laid in place to eliminate the same. Due to such discrimination in the workplace most of the pregnant
women fail to work according to their ability and in many cases they leave their job in order to reduce
their stress caused by the discrimination (Siegel 2017).
Discrimination against pregnant women has been repeated year in, year out. Many decades have
passed and the issue seems to be a habit in the workplace. Basically, discrimination occurs when a
pregnant woman is not treated equally as the rest of the employees. In such cases the pregnant women
face harassment and suffer from stress due to treated unfairly in the work place. Most organizations do
not hire pregnant women because they say that it will lead to disruption since they wanted somebody
offering continuous service (Basow 2016). Pregnant women are not only denied reasonable
accommodation but also being fired at their work (Rosenthal et al. 2018). Those who try to complain
against the law so that the right of pregnant women can be followed, are demoted or fired at times.
Rules and regulations have been implemented in the form of act to reduce the incident of work
place discrimination for the pregnant women. The Equality Act 2010 is one of such important act. This
Act was formed to advocate for unlawful activity regarding equal right such as discrimination in the work
place. According to the section 18 of the act it is illegal to treat a woman unfairly in the work place due to
her pregnancy (Equality Act 2010 2018). Although the Act was formed to protect the women from such
discrimination, most organizations and people in the high rank do not follow what it states. Thus, it is
important to identify the reason of such discrimination in the work place and introduce effective
interventions to resolve the issue and provide equal right to the women in the work place.

Discrimination Against Pregnant women In The Work Place 4
Main Objectives of the Research
(i) To find out whether or not the employers and the managers of the company are aware of the rights of
pregnant women in the work place.
(ii) To identify the reason of work place discrimination for pregnant women.
Methodology
The research has been carried out in two stages:
(i) Stage one; assessed the human resource managers and the employers on the company.
(ii) Stage two; investigation has been done with the victims of pregnancy discrimination in the work
place.
Stage one:
I have conducted an interview to understand deeply the pregnancy discrimination issues which
took approximately 6 hours; since the employees had to continue with their daily activities. The feedback
of the interviewee has been included in report for easy comprehension since the employees were willing
to answer all the questions that I asked them.
Stage two:
I have found a pregnant woman who was in the customer care desk. She had been in the company
for 2 years only. This was after been sacked from his former job as a teller due to pregnancy and
childbirth issues. She has narrated the whole story that has helped me to come up with the feedback in the
report. Her current job was favorable and going by her rights since the employer followed what the
Equality Act has stated. The former employer seemed not to follow what the law outlines about the rights
of the pregnant women in the work place. It has helped me to recognize that the law is very familiar to
most of the company managers but they hardly follow it.

Discrimination Against Pregnant women In The Work Place 5
Timetable
Activity Date done
Gathered information on
Equality Act
25th March 2018
Conducted interview 26th March 2018
Examining of the responses 27th March 2018
Issuing the report 29th March 2018
Result
It has been found that in small industries and organizations, most of the pregnant women were
instantly replaced with other new employees since they referred to pregnant women as disruptors’.
Employers also say that the pregnant women are not committed to work and that they deserve poor or no
accommodation (Fox and Quinn 2015). Large companies followed the rights of the pregnant women since
there is more staff that could take up the responsibilities of those at maternity leave. This case also
happened in the public sector where the digitalized system is used and they are up-to-date (Hansson and
Schenk 2016).
Discussion
Discrimination in the work place due to pregnancy is still present in some companies after the
implementation of Equality Act. The main reason is the mentality of the employer who believes that
pregnant employee could not provide adequate effort as the regular staffs. It is clear that maternity rights
were not upheld and taken with the seriousness it deserves. The organization needs to provide focus on
the rights of the pregnant women and treat them equally as the other employees. The pregnant women are
also required to communicate earlier on their pregnancy matters so that their roles could be easy to
distribute to the rest of the staff (Morgan et al. 2013). Such effort could help both the organization and the
pregnant women to fulfill their responsibility in an effective manner.

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Reference
Basow, S.A., 2016, January. Evaluation of female leaders: Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination.
In Why Congress Needs Women: Bringing Sanity to the House and Senate: Bringing Sanity to the House
and Senate (p. 85). ABC-CLIO.
Equality Act 2010. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/18
Fox, A.B. and Quinn, D.M., 2015. Pregnant women at work: The role of stigma in predicting women’s
intended exit from the workforce. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 39(2), pp.226-242.
Hansson, S.H. and Schenk, L., 2016. Protection without Discrimination: Pregnancy and Occupational
Health Regulations. European Journal of Risk Regulation, 7(2), pp.404-412.
Little, L.M., Major, V.S., Hinojosa, A.S. and Nelson, D.L., 2015. Professional image maintenance: How
women navigate pregnancy in the workplace. Academy of Management Journal, 58(1), pp.8-37.
Morgan, W.B., Walker, S.S., Hebl, M.M.R. and King, E.B., 2013. A field experiment: Reducing
interpersonal discrimination toward pregnant job applicants. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(5), p.799.
Rosenthal, L., Earnshaw, V.A., Moore, J.M., Ferguson, D.N., Lewis, T.T., Reid, A.E., Lewis, J.B.,
Stasko, E.C., Tobin, J.N. and Ickovics, J.R., 2018. Intergenerational Consequences: Women's Experiences
of Discrimination in Pregnancy Predict Infant Social-Emotional Development at 6 Months and 1
Year. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 39(3), pp.228-237.
Siegel, R.B., 2017. Pregnancy as a Normal Condition of Employment: Comparative and Role-Based
Accounts of Discrimination. Wm. & Mary L. Rev., 59, p.969.

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List of questions
o How long have you worked for the company?
o Have you worked in any other company?
o Why did you opt to join this organization?
o Is the current job treating you well even when you are pregnant?
o Did your former employer permit you to go for maternity leave in the previous pregnancy?
o What do you think about the rights of the pregnant women in the work place?
Feedback
It can be said that from the above discussion, the organization need to understand the importance of
Equality Act regarding the rights of the pregnant women in the work place and treated them equally as the
other staffs. The pregnant women should provide information earlier so that the organization could
distribute the responsibilities to the other staffs. Such effort could help to mitigate the issue of work place
discrimination for pregnant women.