Maternity benefits studied by ACS

Abstract

A joint subcommittee of the American Chemical Society's Women Chemists Committee and its Committee on Economic Status has conducted a survey of the maternity benefits that companies offer women chemists and other professionals. The subcommittee's report, approved by both parent committees, recommends that due to maternity should be treated the same way as any other short-term disability. In other words, the committees believe that, if a woman chemist or other professional in a given company suffers disability for, say, three weeks before childbirth and five weeks after childbirth, she should receive during this entire period the same pay and employee benefits that she would receive if she had had any other short-term disability—whether a broken leg, an attack of pneumonia, or the aftereffects of kidney surgery. The ACS committees, however, have not recommended any uniform pay or benefit practices to be adhered to by all firms. In recent years, more and more women have ...