Growing numbers of employees with family responsibilities, including child
and elder care, are filing “caregiver discrimination” or “family responsibility
discrimination” (“FRD”) claims. The number of claims has risen so steadily in
the last decade, the EEOC has recently created guidelines it calls “Enforcement
Guidance on Unlawful Disparate Treatment of Workers with Caregiving
Responsibilities.”
With awareness among younger workers and claims rising rapidly, employers
should be knowledgeable and proactive about this type of claim.
What constitutes Caregiver or Family Responsibility
Discrimination?
The EEOC describes FRD as: discrimination of workers based on their
responsibility to care for children, parents or disabled family members.
FRD does not represent a new form of discrimination as much as it creates a new
way for employees to claim violation of existing discrimination law.
Caregivers are not a protected class. However, they will generally try to
establish liability under the ADA or sex discrimination law on the theory that
they are the victim of disparate treatment because of sex or disability.
The most common FRD claims are from pregnant women, or women who have just
had a child and feel that their employers have discriminated based on
stereotypes that they will not be able to juggle their job and motherhood.
According to the EEOC, pregnancy-related discrimination claims submitted to
their office, and state and local agencies, have risen 45% since 1992.
Examples of FRD discrimination:
Common examples of unlawful disparate treatment of caregivers include:
- Denying women with young children opportunities that are offered to men with
young children.
- Pregnancy-related discrimination, including limiting job duties based on
pregnancy stereotypes.
- Disability-related discrimination, such as not hiring a worker who is the
parent of child with a disability, based on the assumption that the situation
will make the worker less reliable.
Visit http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/qanda_caregiving.html
for a list common Caregiver Discrimination examples.
Next Steps for Employers:
- Review your existing policies to ensure that you do not allow disparate
treatment of employees with caregiving responsibilities and foster equal
treatment of all employees.
- Include awareness of this type of discrimination in your normal
anti-discrimination training.
- Training should also make employees aware that co-workers should not be
treated any differently because of caregiving responsibilities.
