Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

In the very near future I will re-introduce legislation designed to prohibit employers from discriminating based on an applicant’s marital or parental status.

Profiling based on marital or parental status occurs when potential employers ask job applicants if they have children, plan to have children, or are married. All too often, a qualified applicant makes it to the final stages of the hiring process only to be asked if they have children. If the answer is yes, the job suddenly goes to somebody else. Some employers are concerned that a person with children will be distracted from their work, others object to the marital status of a woman with children. Neither of these concerns is relevant to a person's qualifications or potential ability to do the job.

This disparate treatment is a relic of a more discriminatory past, which may have been acceptable during the era of "Mad Men", but is not acceptable now. If you are interested in reading about a real case from right here in Pennsylvania, visit http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2010/12/27/how-maternal-profiling-is-hurting-women/.

This bill would make it unlawful for any employer to ask either in a verbal interview or a written application about the marital or parental status of any applicant of any gender.

If you have questions about this legislation, please contact my Legislative Director, Jon Tew at jtew@pasenate.com or 610-768-4200.