Employers are critical to making sure that family caregivers are able to provide care for their loved ones while continuing to earn a living. The tools below are designed to support employers in complying with the law and taking action to prevent caregiver discrimination in the workplace.
What is Family Responsibilities Discrimination?
Discrimination against employees based on their responsibilities to care for family members–often called “Family Responsibilites Discrimination,” “Family Caregiver Discrimination,” or simply “Caregiver Discrimination”–is a growing area of liability for employers. Employers discriminate against family caregivers when they act based on negative assumptions or sterotypes about caregivers and their performance, such as by passing them over for promotion or hire, subjecting them to hostility, or even terminating them. Whether intentional or not, this form of discrimination can have devastating consequences for employees and their families, and costs employers in lost talent and potential liability.
Learn how to spot caregiver discrimination
Caregiver discrimination can look like:
- As soon as a worker reveals her husband has cancer, her boss starts tracking every minute of her time and exaggerating issues to justify firing her.
- A pregnant worker gets taken off the work schedule because her boss thinks she won’t care about her job after having her baby.
- The hiring manager ghosts a job applicant after he mentions that his partner has a disability. They fear the company will have to pay more for insurance.
- A new dad gets fired when he comes back to work after time off with his baby. His boss explains that men shouldn’t stay home with their kids.
- Managers block an employee from taking lactation breaks even though other employees are allowed to take smoke breaks whenever they want.
- A parent with postpartum depression is told by HR that they can’t take time off to seek help, even though their co-worker took leave after a heart attack.
- A boss wont give their best worker a promotion just because she is a mom. The boss says its because moms won’t be willing to travel for work.
- A worker’s parent moves in with him—soon after he gets fired because his boss believes the worker might need to take days off to help his mom.
Tools for Your Worksite
- Model Policy for Employers: Preventing Discrimination Against Employees with Family Responsibilities
- Laws Protecting Family Caregivers at Work
- Employer Best Practice Tips
For further support, Work+Family Insight provides advice and consulting services to employers and their advisers on issues related to pregnancy accommodation, gender bias in the workplace, and family responsibilities discrimination.