“Well, I’m going to have a baby”: Navigating Safety, Stakeholders, and Strategy in Workplace Pregnancy Disclosures

ABSTRACT

This study explores how 92 women disclosed their pregnancies in the workplace. Examining workplace pregnancy disclosure broadly rather than taking a dyadic approach (e.g. employee to supervisor) highlighted tensions and outcomes associated with simultaneously navigating disclosures to multiple colleagues and supervisors. Data analysis revealed four themes: (b) timing safely, (c) diffusing selectively, (d) controlling gatherings, and (e) crafting conversational tones. Findings situate workplace pregnancy disclosure as a dynamic multi-stakeholder process. Women’s accounts suggest that risk is understood as linked to potential future disclosures and the importance of emotion in crafting disclosure interactions.

KEYWORDS:

• Disclosure
• privacy
• pregnancy
• motherhood
• stigma

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

China Billotte Verhoff

China Billotte Verhoff Verhoff is an Assistant Professor of Interpersonal Communication in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University. Dr. Billotte Verhoff’s research agenda explores self-disclosure and social support processes in the intersections of work, family, and career. Dr. Billotte Verhoff’s work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Language and Social Psychology and Health Communication.

Patrice M. Buzzanell

Patrice M. Buzzanell (Ph.D., Purdue) is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida as well as an Endowed Visiting Professor for the School of Media and Design at Shanghai Jiaotong University. She recently has received the 2021 Steven H. Chaffee Career Achievement Award from the International Communication Association (ICA) and the 2021 Samuel L. Becker Distinguished Service Award from the National Communication Association (NCA). Fellow and Past President of ICA, she also has served as President of the Council of Communication Associations and the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender (OSCLG). Her research coalesces around career, work-life policy, resilience, gender, and engineering design in micro-macro contexts.