Pregnancy Discrimination and the American Worker

Michelle D. Deardorff, James G. Dahl

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137343048
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137533296
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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 and how law mediates conflict between workplace expectations and the realities of pregnancy. 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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A History of Pregnancy and the Workplace
• 3 Competing Definitions of Equality: Formal and Substantive Equality
• 4 Litigating Pregnancy Discrimination in the Federal Courts
• 5 Identifying Unlawful Pregnancy Discrimination under the PDA
• 6 Pregnancy as a Disability? The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act
• 7 Beyond Pregnancy: Title VII and the Protection of Related Medical Conditions of Pregnancy
• 8 Lessons Learned and Emerging Issues
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Cases Cited
• Index