There was no evidence about links between attitudes and behaviours relating to pregnancy and maternity. Most of the evidence in this area focused on employment settings in which employer prejudices may reflect structural and economic factors that they perceive to involve conflict between equality and the economic needs of business. Women in employment settings who have returned to work after a period of parental leave report being discriminated against. The evidence suggests that a lack of knowledge and understanding underpins employers’ discriminatory behaviours rather than prejudiced attitudes. Outside of the workplace, teenage mothers report feeling excluded, stigmatised and stereotyped, suggesting that they may be particularly vulnerable to discrimination. Challenges in this area are amplified by intersections with disability, race and sexual orientation that may feed into disparities in healthcare. The literature search did not identify any interventions specifically for this protected characteristic. The link between prejudiced attitudes and unlawful behaviour Prejudice is an important, though not the only, determinant of whether or not individuals engage in discrimination or identity-based harassment or violence towards a person or group of people. Other important drivers of discrimination include poor institutional practices and laws, and public misinformation or misunderstanding. A very limited volume of research (12 papers out of a total of 197) has directly examined the link between a person’s prejudices and the discrimination that is experienced by someone else as a result. These cannot be directly compared with one another as they focus on different groups, types of question and outcomes, and they differ in scale. There is no evidence of direct links for the protected characteristics of disability, marriage, or pregnancy. However, the evidence does show that there are links, albeit in different forms and involving different elements of prejudice for different protected characteristics. It is also possible by drawing on aggregate evidence (for example, the prevalence of hostile attitudes in a population and the prevalence of experiences of discrimination towards a protected characteristic) to infer the extent of the links. The most prevalent elements of prejudice for a particular protected characteristic are reflected in the ways that the people with that protected characteristic experience discrimination. An example is
There was no evidence about links between attitudes and behaviours relating to pregnancy and maternity. Most of the evidence in this area focused on employment settings in which employer prejudices may reflect structural and economic factors that they perceive to involve conflict between equality and the economic needs of business. Women in employment settings who have returned to work after a period of parental leave report being discriminated against. The evidence suggests that a lack of knowledge and understanding underpins employers’ discriminatory behaviours rather than prejudiced attitudes. Outside of the workplace, teenage mothers report feeling excluded, stigmatised and stereotyped, suggesting that they may be particularly vulnerable to discrimination. Challenges in this area are amplified by intersections with disability, race and sexual orientation that may feed into disparities in healthcare. The literature search did not identify any interventions specifically for this protected characteristic. The link between prejudiced attitudes and unlawful behaviour Prejudice is an important, though not the only, determinant of whether or not individuals engage in discrimination or identity-based harassment or violence towards a person or group of people. Other important drivers of discrimination include poor institutional practices and laws, and public misinformation or misunderstanding. A very limited volume of research (12 papers out of a total of 197) has directly examined the link between a person’s prejudices and the discrimination that is experienced by someone else as a result. These cannot be directly compared with one another as they focus on different groups, types of question and outcomes, and they differ in scale. There is no evidence of direct links for the protected characteristics of disability, marriage, or pregnancy. However, the evidence does show that there are links, albeit in different forms and involving different elements of prejudice for different protected characteristics. It is also possible by drawing on aggregate evidence (for example, the prevalence of hostile attitudes in a population and the prevalence of experiences of discrimination towards a protected characteristic) to infer the extent of the links. The most prevalent elements of prejudice for a particular protected characteristic are reflected in the ways that the people with that protected characteristic experience discrimination. An example is
research-report-101-prejudice-and-unlawful-behaviour.docx