Parenting Journal · Volume 1 · Issue 5 · Licensed source edition
“‘Oh gosh, why go?’ cause they are going to look at me and not hire”: intersectional experiences of black women navigating employment during pregnancy and parenting
Originally published 2023-01-10 · BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
BMC · DOI 10.1186/s12884-022-05268-9 ↗
Working-family evidence
Work, care and the whole person.
Centers Black women’s accounts of hiring, accommodations and job retention, linking workplace respect with financial security and intersecting inequities.
Directly examines work and family life, parenting, caregiving or employment policies for families.
Editorial reading guide · Respect
What happens when a pregnant employee expects to be treated as a liability?
Centers Black women’s accounts of hiring, accommodations and job retention, linking workplace respect with financial security and intersecting inequities.
Study context
24 Black women interviewed about pregnancy and employment in New Haven, Connecticut, in 2017–2018.
Age / stage: Pregnant adults and adults discussing postpartum employment.
Read with three questions
- How did participants describe job searching while visibly pregnant?
- What difficulties arose around accommodations, leave and keeping work?
- How did race, pregnancy and economic marginalization intersect in the interviews?
Keep the limits in view
A small place-specific qualitative study offers depth rather than prevalence estimates; participants’ accounts do not by themselves establish causality or every employer’s practice.
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Original authorship, publication date, journal and DOI are preserved. This issue’s TRICK placement and reading questions are editorial additions, not claims made by the original authors.
Renee Mehra; Amy Alspaugh; Jennifer T Dunn; Linda S Franck; Monica R McLemore; Danya E Keene; Trace S Kershaw; Jeannette R Ickovics (2023). “‘Oh gosh, why go?’ cause they are going to look at me and not hire”: intersectional experiences of black women navigating employment during pregnancy and parenting BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-022-05268-9
Permissions checked against the saved article notice; repository publication notices screened 2026-11-05. This is not a new peer-review decision. The source authors and publishers are not represented as endorsing this issue.