New research from Pregnant Then Screwed has revealed the extent of maternity discrimination in the UK, with new figures that show the number of women who are losing their jobs while pregnant or on maternity leave has risen. The figures, in partnership with Women in Data, estimated that 74,000 women a year are potentially fired or made redundant while pregnant or on maternity leave, a sharp 37 per cent increase from the 54,000 women in that situation in 2016.
On top of this, half (49.5%) of pregnant women, those on maternity leave, and those returning from maternity leave said they had a negative experience at work. Of those who had a negative experience, 1 in 5 (20.6%) left their employer. A third (35.9%) of women say they were sidelined or demoted whilst pregnant, on maternity leave, or when they return from maternity leave. Despite all of this, just 2% of women who experience discrimination raise a tribunal claim.
One of these women is Michela. She started a new job in February 2022, and fell pregnant by April 2022. She says two hours before she was due to go on maternity leave, her boss reduced her hours by half. 'There wasn’t much I could do as I couldn’t afford to live off those reduced hours plus it would have been impossible for me to get a new job being seven months pregnant. They claimed it was because the business needed to finance more hours in another role and they couldn’t afford to keep my hours at 25,' she says. 'After having no choice but to reduce my hours to 16, I later found out my mat cover was hired and they gave her 20 hours. I believe they would have offered her more hours, however, the visa would only allow her to work a maximum of 20 hours.'
A new law came into force in April 2024 to extend redundancy protections to pregnant women and those returning from maternity leave. However, Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, said they have 'long suspected things are getting worse, not better' continuing 'Our free advice line is ringing off the hook, it has reached a point where we simply cannot cope with demand. To find that 74,000 mothers a year are being pushed out of their job for daring to procreate is not surprising, but it is devastating. That’s a woman being pushed out of her job every 7 minutes in the UK for doing something that is part of the human existence.'
Kate, 32, got made redundant two weeks after giving birth. She says it came 'so out of the blue,' continuing 'I got called into a zoom call whilst I was in hospital, didn’t get the message until was home and then when went on it was just the CEO reading from a script telling me they were liquidising the company in the uk.' She adds 'one month later they were advertising for the exact same role, same job description.'
Sadly, this is nothing new. Joeli has been fighting tirelessly for ten years to end the motherhood penalty ever since she had her employment terminated the day after she told her boss she was pregnant. Shocking figures from Pregnant Then Screwed in 2023 found that 1 in 61 of the women surveyed said their boss had insinuated they should have an abortion. They also found 52% of all mothers have faced discrimination when pregnant, on maternity or when they returned. And 1 in 5 mothers have left work due to a negative or discriminatory experience.
Jane* had her first baby in 2021, when she was working as a teacher in a primary school. The school changed to an academy with a new head while she was on maternity leave, and when she returned - 12 weeks pregnant with baby number two - she was told her job was now being done by someone else.
'They’d moved me into a different key stage, I should focus on my teaching and demands of family life (I was the only one in the school with the qualification). My first week back they started observing me teaching and giving me scathing feedback and had put me in a class with a very violent child who would become really distressed so it was difficult to keep the children and me safe during lessons when I didn’t have any support staff,' she says. 'Within 2 weeks they were discussing putting a support plan in place for me. I ended up becoming so stressed that by the end of September I’d been signed off on long term sick leave and chose to resign because of the impact the situation had on my mental health.'
Jodi Brearley said a government commitment in 2016 to gauge the level of pregnancy and maternity discrimination every five years had not been honoured. 'What sort of message does this send to women – that the Government cares so little about this issue that they can’t even be bothered to collect the data,' she added.
Pregnant Then Screwed and Women in Data have launched a campaign urging companies to make their workplaces more family-friendly through actions including increasing paternity leave offerings, advertising jobs as flexible and collecting data on maternity retention.
Taisiya Merkulova, project lead from Women In Data, said: 'Collectively, we need to close the gender gap and remove the challenges women face to achieve equality of opportunities in the workplace and reduce the burden of the unspoken ‘tax’ on mothers from additional unpaid labour as carers and in the home.'
*name has been changed