Pregnant Women Working Longer

Both the Feminist Daily News and the NY Times posted articles regarding new census bureau data on pregnant women. These articles found that 67% of pregnant women worked during their pregnancies in 2000, while only 44% did so in 1960. Women are also less likely to quit their jobs after giving birth now than in the 1960s. The Feminist Daily News reports that these changes are likely tied to women's increasingly higher levels of education, as well the increase in average age for women giving birth. They also point to the fact that more and more families are requiring two incomes in order to survive. The Times however attributed the changes mostly to the increasing availability for paid and unpaid maternity leave and better protections for women against job discrimination.

The Times and the Feminist Daily News took slightly different approaches to analyzing this data, even though the Feminist Daily News got the information from the Times. The Times highlighted the better workplace benefits for women, while the Feminist Daily News pointed to the problems families have surviving on one income. The Times article did not recognize that America has one of the worst federal policies toward maternity/parental leave in the world, only requiring companies that employ more than 50 people to offer 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave. While many more companies offer unpaid or paid leave for parents now than they did in the 1960s, women in many companies still are not offered, or cannot afford, to take substantial leaves. While the Feminist Daily News did not directly point to the lack of parental leave in America, it did not highlight better workplace benefits, therefore subtly suggesting that these benefits are not generally family or women friendly. Their article also pointed to the progressive issue of providing a living wage for workers so that parents can spend time with their children and women do not have to work late into their pregnancies.

New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/26census.html?sq=pregnant%20women&st=nyt&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1204646555-9JBTfYzCIPmTc2mY2nrt0Q

Feminist Daily News article:

http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswire.asp