Responding to the emerging issue of “family responsibility discrimination,” the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has published new guidance on how federal equal employment laws apply to employees who must balance work and family. The new guidance, “Unlawful Disparate Treatment of Workers with Caregiving Responsibilities,” offers examples under which discrimination against a working parent or other caregiver may constitute unlawful disparate treatment under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).
The EEOC notes in the new guidance that changing workplace demographics, including women’s increased participation in the labor force, have created the potential for greater discrimination against working parents. These factors have also increased the incidence of bias against others with caregiving responsibilities, such as those caring for family elders.
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The agency also emphasizes that the guidance isn’t intended to create a new protected category. Rather, its purpose is to illustrate circumstances in which stereotyping or other forms of disparate treatment may violate Title VII or the prohibition under the ADA against discrimination based on a worker’s association with a disabled individual.
A wide range of scenarios that could give rise to discrimination are highlighted in the guidance, including:
- Treating male caregivers more favorably than female caregivers (or vice versa).
- Sex-based stereotyping, such as reassigning a woman to less desirable projects based on the assumption that, as a new mother, she will be less committed to her job.
- Subjective decision-making regarding working mothers (that is, lowering subjective evaluations of a female employee’s work performance after she becomes the primary caregiver of her grandchildren, despite the absence of an actual decline in work performance).
- Discrimination against working fathers and women of color.
- Stereotyping based on an employee’s association with a disabled individual, such as refusing to hire a worker who is a single parent of a disabled child based on the assumption that caregiving responsibilities will make the worker unreliable.
We’ll have a full report in an upcoming issue of the California Employer Advisor.
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