Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Pregancy and employment

Women should have the right to be pregnant and to keep their jobs. Raising a family is a private matter. The market shouldn’t dictate to a woman when she should be pregnant or the frequency of her pregnancies.

Companies should respect the nature of women and by this, the right to procreation. Enforcing regulations that force women to declare their family planning amounts to interference with personal matters. Economic concerns should be set aside when it comes to the fundamental right to keep or have a job.

Women shouldn’t pay a high price to become mothers or have more children by sacrificing job opportunities or the chances for a promotion. Some companies argue that pregnant women affect their level of productivity. But it’s highly unlikely that all working women in a company fall pregnant at the same time.

Companies should provide facilities for pregnant women as well as for mothers with babies. The advantage will be for the future generation as societies with low birth rate won’t be deprived of having more children as a consequence of stringent measures.

In Europe there is the problem of falling birth rate. France, to encourage women have more children has put on incentives for them. They can have a longer maternity leave and they can return to their jobs no matter how their maternity leave is. Here is a BBC report contrasting maternity leave in UK and France.

What is interesting in it is this section as far as women are concerned: “France offers all women workers a paid, job -protected maternity leave six weeks before and 10 weeks after the births of the first two children, eight weeks before and 18 weeks after the birth of the third child, 34 weeks (12 prenatally) for twins and 42 weeks (24 prenatally) for triplets or more. Maternity leave, pre and postnatally, is mandatory.”

At the end of maternity leave, the mother or father can take parental leave until the child reaches the age of three, with entitlement to re-integration into the previous or a similar job. Parents receive a parental leave allowance if they interrupt their employment, totally. “

In the third world country, educated mothers should be encouraged to have children as an educated mother can have a good effect on the education of her child.

In Morocco, women aren’t required to declare their pregnancies before getting a job. This hasn’t become a problem. The majority of women in Morocco are housewives or they practice informal economic activities either as self-employed or for a small private enterprise. Those working ion the public/state sector are free to have as many children as possible without having their salaries suspended or being replaced by another worker.

Whatever, the right of women should be preserved. They shouldn’t be forced to choose between being a mother or a worker. Both go hand in hand as long as there are laws allowing them to be mothers without taking the risk of being made redundant or remaining jobless.

2 comments:

Looney said...

Well, I do know of an incident where a woman joined a company and within a few months, she was off for a very long maternity leave. She came back to the company for a few weeks, then filed for permanent disability. In these cases, the company has no defense and all the employee needs to do is find any doctor who will certify the injury. The net costs to society were probably more than $250,000 dollars for a few months of simple, easy and low stress assembly line work. These kinds of incidents are the reason that most low paying manufacturing jobs have left California for China and other places.

Certainly I don't disagree with your writeup. In any situation where the government tries to legislate charity, however, there is the potential for abuse. Keep the system going long enough without checks and a culture of corruption will eventually take root.

Abdelilah Boukili said...

Thanks Looney for your comment.
There are always those who try to get advantage of any legal system to their advantages, although it can be damaging to other parties. Caution is the best policy.