“The Times They Are a-Changin”: Family Responsibilities Discrimination and the EEOC

Family responsibilities discrimination, bias against workers based on their responsibilities to care for family members is widespread in many organizations and is rapidly becoming a twenty-first century workplace concern. Employers who harass, pass over for promotion, and even terminate workers because they care for children, elderly parents or spouses, or disabled family members have been sued with more frequency and have been paying increasing amounts in verdicts. Recently, the EEOC took an important step toward ending this discrimination by issuing enforcement guidelines that will educate employers and employees about family responsibilities discrimination and caregivers’ rights and responsibilities. The Guidelines explain how federal equal employment opportunity laws apply to workers who struggle to balance work and family, and what firms can do to avoid potential legal problems and accompanying liabilities with respect to family responsibilities and caregiving discrimination.