Pregnancy Discrimination and the American Worker

The percentage of women in the American labor force exceeds 57%, and many experience pregnancy during their working years. However, few analyses have explored how law mediates conflict between workplace expectations and the realities of pregnancy. This book explores how the federal courts have addressed the two primary federal statutory protections found in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. While pregnancy discrimination has been litigated under both, these laws establish different forms of equality. Formal equality requires equal treatment of pregnant women in the workplace, and substantive equality requires the worker's needs to be accommodated by the employer. Drawing from a unique database of 1,112 cases, Deardorff and Dahl discuss how courts have addressed pregnancy through these two different approaches to equality. The authors explore the implications for gender equality and the evolution of how pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions in employment can be addressed by employers.

Michelle D. Deardorff is Professor of Political Science and Department Head at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA. She has coauthored a two-volume constitutional law set, Constitutional Law in Contemporary America (2010), and is on the author team of American Democracy Now (2012).

James G. Dahl is Associate Dean in the Office of Undergraduate Affairs, College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He had previously spent 22 years with the Tabor School of Business at Millikin University, USA; where he served as a faculty member in various administrate roles and Dean of the Tabor School of Business.