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2001

University of Michigan Law School

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Caregiving

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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Attachment Gap: Employment Discrimination Law, Women's Cultural Caregiving, And The Limits Of Economic And Liberal Legal Theory, Laura T. Kessler May 2001

The Attachment Gap: Employment Discrimination Law, Women's Cultural Caregiving, And The Limits Of Economic And Liberal Legal Theory, Laura T. Kessler

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Title VII has prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of pregnancy since 1978, when Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act ("PDA"), but it does not require employers to recognize women's caregiving obligations beyond the immediate, physical events of pregnancy and childbirth. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 ("FMLA ") also does little more than provide job security to some relatively privileged women in the case of childbirth. Neither of these statutes, which constitute the bulk of the United States' maternity and parental leave policies, provides for the most common employment leave needs of caregivers, who by all measures …