Despite the many policies put in place to help eradicate workplace discrimination, it appears that women are still having to hide certain aspects of their life for fear of being discriminated against. These two areas of their lives are marriage and pregnancy.

Whilst it is not illegal to ask about either of these things during an interview, it is illegal to refuse employment to somebody on these grounds. According to the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC) 6 in 10 bosses think women should tell a potential employer if she is pregnant. The survey also revealed that 44% believed women should work for an organisation for at least a year before getting pregnant and 46% felt it appropriate to ask if they have young children.

Likewise, recent reports have revealed that some women remove their wedding rings at interviews to avoid these types of questions cropping up. Whilst evidence of wedding ring-based discrimination appears scant, the fear from women is very real, especially when it is so closely linked to maternal issues in which discrimination is well documented.

Whereas the law protects discrimination based on whether a person is pregnant, breastfeeding or has recently given birth, there is nothing in place to protect against a person’s marital status. Likewise, it’s not illegal for an employer to ask about family plans however, it is illegal to use that as a sole justification for not hiring someone.

Many arguments put forward to justify this kind of discrimination include the amount of time off that will be required by the employee (wedding planning, hen party, wedding & honeymoon or in the case of family matters maternity leave, childcare & work-life balance), their commitment to the job and their career and, in the case of a certain high profile recruiter who’s comments have courted controversy, it makes them ‘high maintenance’.

The sad reality for employers is most people, at some point in their lives, are going to either get married or start to begin raising a family. Many executives and employers do have families and are married so the whole argument does have a slight reek of hypocrisy about it.

Excuses aside, there are many benefits these types of people can bring to the table.

• Raising a family or planning a wedding isn’t easy and it takes extreme amounts of patience, time management and multi-tasking ability to pull off. Time is precious, so mothers and brides will know that productivity is important in the time frames available.

• As a result of motherhood, many women’s emotional skills have grown and developed which is fantastic news if she is leading a team. Her ability to nurture talent and manage teams with compassions means a happy workforce, and we all know a happy workforce is a productive workforce.

• The trials and tribulations of motherhood build inner strength, a strength to carry on no matter what. If they can apply that to motherhood, just imagine what they could do applying it to their career.

So in a nutshell, there are no real reasons not to hire women based on their marital or family status, but there certainly are plenty of reasons to do so.