Hiring Pregnant Women

An interesting little conversation starter Hiring Pregnant Women - Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay

Would you hire someone if you knew you had to give them long-term leave soon after starting? There is also the chance that they will not come back to work. What if the child has special needs and the parent never returns? Maybe they will decide that parenting is more important than the success of your company - crazy notion. Some children can really suck the life out of parents with lack of sleep, so even though you have your employee back they are less than effective. The urge to discriminate would be extremely high.

This is particularly relevant in Aus right now as the government is looking into paid maternity, paternity and parental leave. Are we opening the doors to an increase in discrimination, or do we accept that as a potential negative for a stronger positive? Is this a question of values? Do we value parenting higher than paid work?

I would hope we are going to back parenting, but then I am biased.

Unfortunately I suspect most organisations hire with a very short term need. We need this person to start doing this job right now, and we hope there will be more work for them in the future. If this type employer has a pregnant (or likely to soon be up the duff) candidate and they must give this person maternity leave then they are looking at hiring a liability and will reject the candidate. So there are a few perspectives on this the first is that this is discrimination that is not based on poor fit of candidate (as the recruitment process is all about discrimination) and the second is that the candidate is lucky to avoid working for such fools.

Should we help the employer see the light and hire the right people, or just hope they make enough stupid decisions they have to close? Harsh and off topic, kinda.