Samenvatting

In this article we report on our research which aimed to investigate which fac-tors influence the outcome of pregnancy discrimination cases of the Dutch Equal Treatment Commission (CGB) and the compliance of respondents with this outcome. We studied equal treatment legislation and all 188 cases between the period of September 1994 and March 2008. The results show that equal treatment legislation hardly leaves any room for objections raised by the re-spondents. The arguments made by the employers are often based on financial or other business-related burdens, even though these arguments are legally irrelevant. We assume that the strictness of the legislation might cause the lack of willingness to comply with the outcome. This presumption is confirmed by the fact that the legal representatives of employers put forward these irrelevant arguments as well. Furthermore, the results show that the nature of the relation of the applicant with the respondent has an influence on the compliance of the respondent with the outcome. Respondents are more likely to comply in cases where the applicant is already working for the employer instead of applying for a job. The results also show that non-profit organizations are more likely to comply with the outcome than profit organizations.