Men & The Maternal Wall

The first generations of women are hitting The Maternal Wall long before the Glass Ceiling, and the number of pregnancy discrimination claims filed annually with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is hovering at an all-time high. A study conducted by Shelly Correll indicates the stigma goes far beyond “Penalizing Pregnancy” concluding HR Managers were twice as likely to interview an apparently childless woman over an equally qualified woman with children. Interestingly, the New York Times followed this article on women who won’t quit working with an article on the substantially increasing numbers of men who are officially “out of the Labor Force,” neither working or looking for work. Among women the number who are out of the Labor Force has fallen from 66% in 1950 to 43% today, while men exhibit the opposite long-term trend. In 1950, 14% of men were out of the Labor Force, that figure stands at 31% today. We do hear men say, “They want a woman, I’m the wrong gender.”