What's New

Click here to see The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict, a joint report of WorkLife Law and the Center for American Progress—the first comprehensive report to document how work-family conflict affects poor and working class people, instead of focusing exclusively on how professional women "opt out." >> Click here for report

WLL in the News

Ruth Marcus, "A working parent's babysitter blues," Washington Post, February 3, 2010

Ameet Sachdev, "Win in parental discrimination case raises issues for employers," Chicago Tribune, January 24, 2010
>> Read more

NEW! WorkLife Law Releases Report on Local FRD Laws
At least 63 cities and counties in 22 states have laws that expressly prohibit employment discrimination based on familal status or responsibilities. Read WLL's new report, a comprehensive survey and analysis of these laws. For more information, see the press release or visit our FRD public policy page.

WorkLife Law's Gender Bias Learning Project
Unfortunately, gender bias is still alive and well in academia. With support from an NSF ADVANCE leadership grant, WLL has developed the Gender Bias Learning Project, an online training on how to identify -- and survive --the four basic patterns of gender bias. Visit the project's website or, for more information, visit our For Academics section.

WorkLife Law's State FRD Legislation Tracker
Several states have considered or are considering legislation to explicitly prohibit FRD. Download our state legislation tracker for details and links. For more information, visit our FRD public policy page.

FRD trainings available WorkLife Law has a variety of training materials and can work with you to provide trainings tailored to your organization's or company's needs.

EEOC issues guidance on Caregiver Discrimination
The EEOC issued enforcement guidance about caregiver discrimination, which is another name for Family Responsibilities Discrimination. The guidance, which contains examples of personnel actions that the EEOC would consider discriminatory...
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Upcoming Events

March 16-17, 2010
"Society for Human Resource Management Employment Law and Legislative Conference", Washington, DC (Joan Williams)

April 6, 2010
"Chicago-Kent School of Law Piper Lecture", Chicago, IL (Joan Williams)

June 23-26, 2010
"National Employment Lawyers Association Annual Convention", Washington, DC (Joan Williams)

July 11-15, 2010
"Leadership Academy for Women", UC Hastings, San Francisco, CA

>> Read more

Family Responsibilities Discrimination (FRD) is employment discrimination against workers based on their family caregiving responsibilities. Pregnant women, mothers and fathers of young children, and employees with aging parents or sick spouses or partners may encounter FRD. They may be rejected for hire, passed over for promotion, demoted, harassed, or terminated -- despite good performance -- simply because their employers make personnel decisions based on stereotypical notions of how they will or should act given their family responsibilities.

Click below to listen to a podcast of Joan C. Williams and Heather Boushey discussing The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict report on KQED’s Forum

FRD affects men and women across the income spectrum and employers in every industry. Cases have included those in low-wage jobs (grocery clerks, nurses' aides), pink-collar jobs (administrative assistants, teachers), blue-collar jobs (police, firefighters), and professional/managerial jobs (lawyers, doctors, executives). Here are some examples of FRD:

• firing or demoting employees when they become pregnant;
• passing over highly qualified mothers for hire or promotion in favor of less qualified fathers or women without children;
• firing employees without valid business reasons when they return from maternity or paternity leave;
• denying flexibility to employees who want it for child care reasons, while allowing flexibility to employees for non-family reasons (e.g., to participate on a sports team);
• firing employees whose spouses or elderly parents become disabled for fear of increased absenteeism or higher health insurance premiums; and
• fabricating work infractions or performance deficiencies to justify dismissal of employees with family responsibilities. 

The Center for WorkLife Law (WorkLife Law or WLL) is a nonprofit research and advocacy group with a unique "six stakeholder" model that reflects our belief that many different stakeholders are ready, willing, and able to play a role in sparking social and organizational change around work/life issues. WorkLife Law works with employees, employers, plaintiffs' employment lawyers, management-side employment lawyers, unions, and public policymakers, to educate each group about the prevalence of family responsibilities discrimination, and to develop effective measures to eliminate FRD. WLL also works with social scientists to spark interdisciplinary studies of bias against caregivers, and works extensively with the press.

WorkLife Law is housed at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. WLL's work is made possible through generous support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Rockefeller Family Fund, The Wallace A. Gerbode Foundation, the Women's Bar Association of D.C. Foundation, Abigail Disney, and the University of California Hastings College of the Law.