No jobs for mothers

What is wrong with the world?

I just read a somewhat head-exploding article by Viv Groskop on today's Guardian Unlimited called 'Mothers need not apply'. If you feel the need to rouse some of your feminist ire, go and read it. Actually go and read it even if you don't. It might make your head explode too.

The article is an investigation into 'Maternal Profiling' - apparently rife in the US - which is illegal in both Canada and the UK, although as Groskop worryingly points out, the fact that it is illegal does not necessarily mean that it doesn't happen.

For those not in the know about this latest 'buzzword' (accorded such status by the New York Times at the end of 2007), maternal profiling allows discrimination towards employees and jobseekers on the basis of family status. In clearer terms, it allows employers to overlook qualified female candidates because they are planning to have a child, or even simply considering it. In the US it is quite legal in all but 22 states to enquire about an interviewee's marital status and plans for children, and apparently many employers take advantage of this right.

According to research by MomsRising.org, a 140,000 strong US group that campaigns for equal rights for mothers:

-mothers are 79 per cent less likely to be hired than non mothers with the same resume and work experience.

-mothers were offered $11,000 less in starting pay than non-mothers with the same resume and work experience.

Even if a woman doesn't have any plans to start a family, or doesn't even want children, just because she is married and of child-bearing age, employers may look at her differently than a man at any age. This is a problem that affects all women, whether they already have kids, want kids, or don't want them.

And why is there no 'Paternal Profiling'? You'd think, in this day and age with all the emphasis on shared parental responsibility and discussion of paternity leave that the same principles would apply to men. Yet it seems like it's always assumed that it will be the mothers who are responsible for the child and will take time off from work. Surely, if all mothers and fathers did an equal share of childcare all employees could be treated the same?

Why should any employer assume that a woman is suddenly going to work fewer hours, make huge claims on their health insurance, or even leave her job just because she has a baby?

What's worrying for Canadians/Brits is that even though we have anti-discriminatory laws specifically designed to watch for this kind of behaviour, it's extremely hard to prove and take action against. It seems that many women, despite a tottering pile of legislation, are still being discriminated against in the workplace for this reason.

And because Canadian/UK employers are specifically forbidden from asking questions about marital status, an employer aiming to avoid hiring a woman who might get pregnant could easily avoid hiring any woman under 40 or so at all, and justify it in some other way.

Groskop's article does indeed show that maternal profiling is not just confined to the US:

"Last year, a survey by the new Equality and Human Rights Commission found that 70% of recruitment agencies had been asked to avoid hiring women who were pregnant or likely to get pregnant.

The commission also found that mothers face more discrimination in the workplace than any other group. Those with children under 11 were 45% less likely to be employed than men, with that figure rising to 49% among single mothers.

A YouGov poll of 1,000 UK directors, also conducted in 2007, revealed that 21% knew of instances where their company had avoided hiring women of child-bearing age - 19% admitted to making this decision themselves.

In the same poll, more than two-thirds of senior executives said that the bureaucracy surrounding parental leave posed a "serious threat" to their companies.

And in 2004 an extraordinary survey by HR information provider Cromer found that eight in 10 human resources managers would "think twice" before hiring a newly married woman in her 20s. (They had fewer reservations about hiring mothers with older children, they said, as they would be "less likely to take maternity leave".)"

You've got to be kidding me.

At least we get paid maternity leave though. Seriously, who'd have a baby in the US? The United States is one of the only countries in the world that doesn't have paid maternity leave (the only other industrialized one that doesn't is Australia, which still guarantees a full 12 months of unpaid maternity leave).

And a parting thought:

Given all the attention the gnarly topic of abortion has been given recently, particularly in the US, maybe it won't be such an issue when women are given the same rights as men, despite choosing to have children. 79 per cent less likely to be hired? $11,000 less starting pay? I don't know about you, but that's a pretty big incentive not to have a child.

Check out ParentDish.com and WashingtonPost.com for some case stories from readers (which also might make your head explode).