Women Are Afraid Of Asking Employers About Maternity Benefits…Are You?

78% of us would not ask a potential employer about maternity benefits for fear of not being offered a job

Scared to ask your boss about your maternity rights? You’re not the only one. New research has revealed a worrying statistic: nearly 80% of all women quizzed said they are nervous to ask their employers about their maternity rights.

Online careers community Glassdoor spole to 1,000 women for its 2014 Maternity Benefits Survey. The results were shocking: it would seem that although we’re perfectly happy asking about holidays and pensions, 78% of us would not ask a potential employer about maternity benefits for fear of not being offered a job.

Not only that, only 32% of women said they were voluntarily given information about maternity when they do get the job, making them less inclined to ask due to fears that it may affect their career progression, or worse still, lead to redundancy.

The statistics don’t stop there. More than 1/5 women said they were treated differently by their employer after telling them about their pregnancy, with 1/10 even revealing they felt devalued.

This news comes as a surprise just a few weeks after Facebook and Apple announced they will pay for female employees to freeze their eggs and reveals just how much of a taboo pregnancy in the workplace still is.

Jon Ingham, Glassdoor career expert argued: ‘There are more than 13 million women in the workplace and among these more than 5 million are working mums. These women are an important part of UK businesses so it seems pretty short sighted to keep maternity benefit details under lock and key.’

We’d love to hear from you on the subject of pregnancy and your career to further the discussion. Do you feel unable to ask your employer about your maternity rights? If you did ask: were you treated differently? Share your experiences with us on Facebook and Twitter and we may include your thoughts here.