I heard this report today on NPR's All Things Considered. It tells the story of Kiki Peppard, a single mother in Pennsylvania who repeatedly got asked whether she was married and whether she had children when she went to apply for jobs. Sometimes the job interview would end immediately after she said that she had children. She took her situation to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, only to find out that it is legal in Pennsylvania to hire/fire on the basis of marital/parental status. The group Mom's Rising has been working to change the law in Pennsylvania to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of marital and parental status. So far, the Republican-held Pennsylvania Legislature has bucked all attempts to pass the law.
(More Below the Flip)
This is an issue that affects everyone, men and women. Some employers might discriminate in favor of single men and women because they "have more time for their work". Some employers might favor married employees for cultural reasons (they want a "family-oriented" workplace). Some employers might even have policies which prohibit employees from marrying co-workers. In the states without protection from discrimination on the basis of marital-status, that would be perfectly legal. None of this is the employer's god-damned business.
So, I decided to check out which states protect employees from discrimination on the basis of marital-status and parental-status and which do not.
The following map shows the states which statutorily prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of marital-status. (Colorado prohibits restrictions on marrying co-workers but not other marital-status discrimination)
For the most part, the green states are the usual suspects in terms of progressive legislation. However, there are a few exceptions. For example, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont all lack martial-status protections.
The picture with regard to familial/parental status discrimination is a little harder to establish. Only nine states have familial/parental status written into their employment discrimination statutes. California prohibits housing discrimination on the basis of familial status, but not employment discrimination. Several states prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, but don't mention children already born. What I can say for sure though is that the situation with respect to parental/familial-status is no better than that with regard to marital-status.
So, what can we do about it. We should support groups like Mom's Rising and their efforts in Pennyslvania. We should also work to make our legislators aware that marital/parental-status employment discrimination is still legal in many places. If you didn't know it was legal where you live, then there is a fair chance that your legislator didn't either.