Study shows lack of support for pregnant workers

A THIRD of mothers in work during their pregnancy say they experienced “unfair treatment”, the first Irish study of its kind on the issue has found.

Pregnancy At Work: A National Survey,which was published yesterday by the Crisis Pregnancy Programme in conjunction with the Equality Authority and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), found that, at its most extreme, the unfair treatment involved dismissal.

“This was reported by 5 per cent of women employed during pregnancy,” the report says.

Other forms of unfavourable treatment included loss of salary or bonus or denial of promotion (10 per cent), being given unsuitable work or workloads (12 per cent), receiving unpleasant comments from managers or co-workers (8 per cent) and being discouraged from attending ante-natal appointments during work-time (8 per cent) – even though this is a legal right.

Unfair treatment was found to be most common among women working in the retail and wholesale sectors and in organisations without a formal equality policy in place. Such treatment was found to be less common in small work-places that had nine or fewer employees.

The authors surveyed 2,300 women who had been randomly selected from the universal child benefit register at the Department of Social Protection, and whose youngest child had been born between July 2007 and June 2009.

“The majority of mothers with young children and women of childbearing age are now in the workforce and their experience at work during and after pregnancy make this an important issue for the workplace and employees,” said co-author Helen Russell of the ESRI.

Of the women surveyed, two-thirds had been working while pregnant.

One-third of all the women said their pregnancy had been a crisis. The reasons given for this were financial (49 per cent), unplanned (44 per cent), relationship difficulties (28 per cent) and work-related reasons (27 per cent).

Looking at take-up of maternity leave, 92 per cent of women took maternity leave (26 weeks), during which most were entitled to State payments.

About 48 per cent also received top-up payments from their employers, and 41 per cent of the women took additional unpaid maternity leave of up to 16 weeks.

There were a number of policy implications from the report, said Ms Russell.

“While the majority, 71 per cent, of employers are supportive of women having children, there is scope for greater awareness of the need for family-friendly workplaces, to retain and support women in the workplace,” she said.

She also said there was need for greater awareness-raising among employers and the public in general about the importance of supporting working women to have children.

Brian Merriman, the spokesman for the Equality Authority, said maternity issues were becoming an “added pressure for women in the workforce”.