The Pregnancy Discrimination Act

Additional workplace rights for new parents come from the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, or PDA (92 Stat. § 2076), passed in 1978 as an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This federal law widely prohibits many types of discrimination. The PDA outlaws discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, or any related medical condition.

1. Who Is Covered

Like other provisions of Title VII, the PDA applies to all workplaces that:

• engage in some type of interstate commerce—today, broadly construed to include all employers that use the mails or telephones, and

• have 15 or more employees for any 20 weeks of a calendar year.

2. Available Protections

The PDA specifies that pregnant employees—and those recovering from an abortion—who need time off from work must be treated the same as other temporarily disabled employees. For example, a company that allows employees to return to work with full seniority and benefit rights after taking time off for a surgical operation and recovery must similarly reinstate women who take time off because of a pregnancy.

On the flip side, this law may also help sanction the denial of a benefit to a pregnant worker if that benefit has been denied any other temporarily disabled worker. If it is company policy, for example, to suspend seniority rights and benefits for employees who require extended medical leave, those work benefits must also be denied to pregnant workers on leave.

Also, while the PDA bars discrimination based on pregnancy, unlike the Family and Medical Leave Act, it does not require an employer to provide a pregnant employee with leave—and does not guarantee job security while a worker is out on leave.

The protections in the Act sound sensible and absolute. But, in truth, employers routinely shirk their legal duties when dealing with pregnant workers. The EEOC, which enforces complaints of pregnancy discrimination on the job, reports that the number of charges of this wrong increased by well over third a from 1992 to 2004. And, with 20 million new pregnancies likely among working women in the decade kicked off by the year 2000, the problems and complaints are not likely to shrink without more definitive legislation, stronger workplace policies, or both.

a. Forced Leaves

The PDA bars mandatory maternity leaves—and those that are prescribed for a set time and duration. The focus instead is on whether an individual pregnant worker remains able to perform her job. A pregnant woman cannot be required to take a leave from work during her pregnancy as long as she remains able to do her job.

b. Hiring and Promotion Discrimination

In addition, an employer cannot refuse to hire or promote a woman solely because she is pregnant—or because of stereotyped notions of what work is proper for a pregnant woman to do or not to do.

c. Insurance Discrimination

The PDA also states that an employer cannot refuse to provide health care insurance benefits that cover pregnancy if it provides such benefits to cover other medical conditions.

The sole exception here is that an employer need not pay for health insurance benefits for an abortion—except where the life of the pregnant woman would be endangered if the fetus is carried to term or where there are medical complications following the abortion.

3. Men’s Rights to Leaves

Under Title VII, an employer must grant men the same options for taking leaves from their jobs to care for children as it grants to women. To do otherwise would constitute illegal discrimination based on gender.