Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America's Biggest Companies

Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies


When she got pregnant, Otisha Woolbright asked to stop lifting heavy trays at Walmart. Her boss said she had seen Demi Moore do a flip on TV when she was nearly full-term — so being pregnant was “no excuse.” Ms. Woolbright kept lifting until she got hurt.


When she got pregnant, Rachel Mountis was winning awards for being a top saleswoman at Merck. She was laid off three weeks before giving birth.



When she got pregnant, Erin Murphy, a senior employee at the financial giant Glencore, was belittled on the trading floor. After returning from maternity leave, she was told to pump milk in a supply closet cluttered with recycling bins.




Many pregnant women have been systematically sidelined in the workplace. They’re passed over for promotions and raises. They’re fired when they complain.

By NATALIE KITROEFF and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG JUNE 15, 2018

American companies have spent years trying to become more welcoming to women. They have rolled out generous parental leave policies, designed cushy lactation rooms and plowed millions of dollars into programs aimed at retaining mothers. But these advances haven’t changed a simple fact: Whether women work at Walmart or on Wall Street, getting pregnant is often the moment they are knocked off the professional ladder. Throughout the American workplace, pregnancy discrimination remains widespread. It can start as soon as a woman is showing, and it often lasts through her early years as a mother.

The New York Times reviewed thousands of pages of court and public records and interviewed dozens of women, their lawyers and government officials. A clear pattern emerged. Many of the country’s largest and most prestigious companies still systematically sideline pregnant women. They pass them over for promotions and raises. They fire them when they complain.

In physically demanding jobs — where an increasing number of women unload ships, patrol streets and hoist boxes — the discrimination can be blatant. Pregnant women risk losing their jobs when they ask to carry water bottles or take rest breaks. In corporate office towers, the discrimination tends to be more subtle. Pregnant women and mothers are often perceived as less committed, steered away from prestigious assignments, excluded from client meetings and slighted at bonus season.

Each child chops 4 percent off a woman’s hourly wages, according to a 2014 analysis by a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Men’s earnings increase by 6 percent when they become fathers, after controlling for experience, education, marital status and hours worked.

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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/15/business/pregnancy-discrimination.html