My dissertation examines three factors that influence women's workplace inequality: the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Meritor Saving Bank v. Vinson, and women "opting out" (i.e., voluntarily leaving) of work to take care of their families. Each of the three essays attempts to resolve one or more fundamental questions in the literature on women's workplace inequality. Additionally, each of these factors is described in its own essay, and these essays are presented in chronological order of the events they discuss. The first substantive chapter, Chapter Two, examines the association between the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and women's employment rates, men's employment rates, and women's disadvantage in employment rates. The PDA declared pregnancy discrimination a type of sex-based discrimination, making it illegal under Title VII. Among other provisions, the PDA extended temporary disability benefits (TDB) to pregnant workers who were already covered by TDB for non-pregnancy-related conditions. This extension was designed to increase the likelihood of women's returning to work after giving birth. There is a debate within the literature on whether the PDA positively affected women, hurt women, or had no effect on women. This paper uses difference-in-difference modeling with Current Population Survey data from 1968 to 2010 to weigh in on this debate. There is a positive association between the PDA and the difference between men's and women's employment because it narrows the gap between women's and men's employment rates. However, the PDA had no effect on women's employment rates and a negative effect on men's employment rates. Chapter Three examines the association between wages and the 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, which declared workplace sexual harassment illegal under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I test two hypotheses, a "naïve hypothesis," which argues that anti-sexual harassment policies increase women's wages, and a "critical hypothesis," which contends that these policies hurt or had no effect on women's wages. Using a difference-in-difference model with Current Population Survey data from 1977 to 2010, I find that there is a negative association between Meritor and women's wages. Furthermore, I find no association between Meritor and either men's wages or the gender wage ratio. Finally, Chapter Four examines the association between women opting out and socioeconomic status (SES). I explore two contrasting storylines within the opting out literature. The first storyline focuses on the lives of high-SES women and the likelihood that they opt out. The other storyline focuses on the lives of low-SES women and the likelihood that they opt out. It is important to note that neither storyline denies the existence of the other, but research that focuses solely on one class of women may miss a significant part of the story. Using the Current Population Survey from 1980 to 2009, I first describe the trends of opting out over this 30-year span. I then test six SES-related variables (education of spouse, education of respondent, household income, below poverty line, receive welfare income, and receive food stamps). I find that low-SES women are opting out at similar rates between 1980 and 2009, but the rates for high-SES women have declined. Additionally, I find overwhelming evidence that low-SES women are more likely to opt out. / Sociology

「懷孕」應該是正面、美好且有益於整體國家社會的事情，對雇主也是有利的，因她們也具有「再生產」的功能，讓雇主能有源源不絕的勞動力，可惜許多雇主對懷孕婦女的偏見仍然存在，對懷孕婦女工作能力與復工意願皆有所質疑，然而國外相關研究結果卻指出若雇主能夠摒棄偏見，從一開始就願意接受懷孕婦女，提供家庭支持方案，如工作調整、彈性工時或托育措施等協助懷孕婦女，不僅能減少員工在工作與家庭間的衝突，更可保留優秀女性人才、提升組織效率與員工生產力，進而創造「勞資雙贏」的局面。 因此，本研究以我國懷孕婦女為對象來瞭解組織內家庭支持方案的實施與提供，對懷孕員工的組織承諾及產後復工時機之影響。本研究結果發現如下： 一、懷孕婦女的組織承諾偏向普通程度，並未如雇主所認為對工作不忠誠。 二、組織提供的家庭支持方案越多，懷孕婦女的組織承諾越高。組織提供越多的家庭支持方案，會影響員工對組織的情感，這些好感會轉化成對組織的忠誠。 三、工作＼家庭文化對組織承諾皆具有正向預測力。因此，組織文化是對家庭友善的文化，有助於提昇懷孕婦女的組織承諾。 四、收入低的懷孕婦女，產後復工意願較低，即使願意復工，復工時機也比較晚。對收入低的懷孕婦女來說，離職或請繼續育嬰假的機會成本比較低，並衡量市場工資與托嬰費用後，選擇留在家中照顧新生兒減輕家庭經濟負擔。 五、工作＼家庭文化「主管支持」構面與懷孕婦女產後復工意願有顯著正相關，且具正向預測力。這顯示出當公司主管能夠很敏感的注意到有家庭責任之員工的需求，並能積極提供協助與支持，則其懷孕員工在產後會更願意復工。 六、雇主提供的產假越長，懷孕婦女有更多的時間休養，產後會更願意復工。 七、雇主提供無薪產假的懷孕婦女比雇主提供全薪產假者，產後復工時機較晚。 大體上，我國經驗研究在相當程度上是支持西方國家的研究結果，但我國家庭支持方案的實施狀況仍不夠普遍。家庭支持方案的提供的確可提昇懷孕婦女的組織承諾，有助於減少離職率，大幅降低企業招募和重新訓練的成本，故我國企業應該積極引進家庭支持方案，達到勞資雙贏的結果。 / “Pregnancy” should be a positive, beautiful and beneficial thing to the society. It is also good to employers, because pregnant women provide a “reproductive” function, with which employers would not face the labor shortage. But many employers still have some prejudices against pregnant women. For instance, pregnant workers are considered not being able to concentrate on their jobs, and won’t come back to work after childbirth. In accordance with the relevant findings of the study abroad, this study found employers can abandon their prejudices, and provide family-responsive benefits, such as job adjustments, flextime or childcare programs, it can not only reduce the work and family conflicts, but also retain the women laborforce, improve organizational efficiency and productivity, thereby creating a “win-win” situation. The major findings below: 1.Pregnant workers’ organizational commitments are as normal as workers in general are. Pregnant workers are not unfaithful to employers . 2.The more family-responsive benefits employers provide, the more loyalty pregnant workers would have. 3.Work-family culture has positive impact on to organizational commitments of pregnant workers. Pregnant workers’ organizational commitments will be enhanced when the corporate culture is family-friendly. 4.Pregnant workers in low wages tend to stay at home, and won’t return to work after childbirth. Even they will return, the timing they return would be delayed. 5.If supervisors are sensitive to employee’ family and personal concerns, the pregnant workers prefer returning to work after childbirth. 6.If employers provide longer maternity leaves, pregnant workers would have enough time to take a rest, and they would tend to return to work after childbirth. 7.Pregnant workers who got unpaid maternity leaves return to work later than who got paid maternity leaves. In sum, this study supports the findings of western countries in a certain extent. But the family-responsive benefits are not popular in Taiwan. If organizations provide family-responsive benefits, pregnant workers’ organizational commitments will be enhanced. It can also reduce the turnover rate and the costs of recruitment and training. For the above reasons, the organizations in Taiwan should introduce family-responsive benefits and create a “win-win” situation.