ORCID

Abstract

When a pregnancy ends in England and Wales, statutory time away from paid employment is limited to circumstances where there is a live birth or stillbirth. Forms of leave, such as Maternity Leave or Paternity Leave, depend on parental status derived from the civil registration of a new person or a post-viability stillbirth. Other early pregnancy endings, such as miscarriage or abortion, do not provide specific time off work after pregnancy. This paper uses the concept of reproductive governance to analyze current and shifting biopolitical truth discourses, strategies of intervention, and modes of subjectification around post-pregnancy leaves. It shows how different inclusions and exclusions are generated by the classificatory boundaries which act as political technologies in this field. Contributing to an area that is under-researched in the literature, we provide a review of post-pregnancy statutory employment leave entitlements in this context. We then consider proposals for change presented in the United Kingdom political system in relation to more inclusive leave benefits offered by some employers and different pregnancy ending leaves offered in other jurisdictions. We argue that current arrangements and proposals do not adequately reflect the complexity and diversity of pregnancy endings. We conclude with a call to policymakers in all contexts to carefully assess the consequences of new ideas around leaves for pregnancy endings and to formulate inclusive and fair proposals for change.

Publication Date

2023-12-11

Publication Title

Gender, Work & Organization

Volume

31

Issue

1

ISSN

0968-6673

Acceptance Date

2023-07-22

Deposit Date

2024-09-13

Funding

The Early Pregnancy Endings and the Workplace project was funded by an Open University Impact Acceleration award between August 2021 and July 2022 and has subsequently received seedcorn funding from The Open University Business School for the academic year 2022–2023. It was reviewed by, and received a favourable opinion, from The Open University Human Research Ethics Committee—HREC reference number: HREC/4201/Brewis. This paper was also supported by the first author's Economic and Social Research Council grants ES/J50015X/1 and ES/X00712X/1 and the Wellcome Center for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter.

Keywords

abortion, biopolitics, employment leave, miscarriage, reproductive governance

First Page

75

Last Page

91

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