Impact of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 [Amendment 2017] on job employment of working mothers in India

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to clarify an impact of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017) on job employment of working mothers. It proposes the certain facts that has positive impact on employment of women from the point of view of Government of India, but at the same time it highlights some negative implications that are faced by the employers and working mothers. The objective of this act is to provide a woman with a financial assistance and make her free from engaging in any work so as to protect health of “New Mother” and “New Born child”. Also, the act ensures women to take care of her child without having worry about loss of her job and loss of her employment. Design/methodology/approach This paper carries efforts of researcher done on the topic of “Impact of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017)” and measures its impact on employers and job employment of working mothers in India through literature review from various sources like SCOPUS, EMERALD, EBSCO, PROQUEST, SAGE, etc. The paper opted for an exploratory study using the questionnaire approach of grounded theory, including 50 in-depth interviews of working mothers. Findings Outcome of this describes both positive and negative implications of this amendment on businesses and job employment of working mothers. It throws the limelight on implementation of this act in real life and identification of problems and stress faced by women employee either to get the job or to retain the job during pregnancy period which is very hazardous to the health of women and her inborn child also. Research limitations/implications Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further. Practical implications The paper includes implications of the Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017) on employers whether to hire women employee or not and on women though they are having capability to do work but because of ignorance of government on ensuring proper implementation of act, women are not getting opportunity to work after baby birth. Originality/value This paper fulfils an identified need to study and find some measures for effective implantation of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017) so as to protect and regulate employment of women workers before and after child birth so as to increase female labour force participation rate.