Agency: Women who choose abortion cite career as influence

THERE is incontrovertible evidence that work and career opportunities strongly influence the way women deal with crisis pregnancies, research reveals.

Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA) director Caroline Spillane said companies needed to think more about their workplace policy and culture around the issue.

“Our research indicates that there are strong linkages between parenting, pregnancy decision-making and the workplace,” she said.

The CPA has found that women who choose abortion often mention career, education, childcare and financial concerns as some of the principal factors that influenced their decision.

Ms Spillane, who yesterday addressed a CPA-hosted conference in Dublin for employers and policy makers, said childcare is central to parents and the workplace in such situations.

“This is an issue that affects workers across the full gamut of socio-economic groups and business sectors,” she said.

One in five women between the ages of 25 to 34 have experienced a crisis pregnancy. The average age for a crisis pregnancy is 23 for women and 25 for men.

A crisis pregnancy is most likely to coincide with the age at which most women enter a critical phase in their employment experience.

CPA chairwoman, Katharine Bulbulia said employers had a critical role to play in the decisions made regarding crisis pregnancies.

Studies showed that services and supports provided by the workplace were needed most of all by those women facing a crisis pregnancy, she said.

“Given women’s increasing role in the labour force, this needs to move up the agenda.”

Director of the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies at Trinity College Dublin Dr Maryann Valiulis, said the centre was involved in a major Irish study on women and ambition.

Dr Valiulis said they wanted to know if women and men in Ireland differed in their view on ambition.

An international study in which she played a part found that women in middle management measured success on job satisfaction, not money and power.

She said the five-year project that was funded with a grant from the Department of Justice would focus on both the private and public sector.

“We must be able to accommodate different styles of ambition,” she said.

The Equality Authority’s head of development, Dr Carol Baxter, said the long hours working culture at management level was preventing women with caring responsibilities from furthering their career.

“Mothers may not put themselves forward for further promotion if they consider themselves unable to work the longer hours required of management.

“Senior management might prefer to give promotions to those they consider most ready to be available to work longer hours, thereby eliminating many women with caring responsibilities.”