More Women Forced to Reduce Maternity Leave Under Stress of the Economy

June 16, 2009— -- Michelle Papachristou of Brooklyn, N.Y., originally planned to take nine months of mostly unpaid maternity leave with her daughter Nina, just as she did with her son.

But a few months in, she's now planning to pick up her flight attendant duties after four months.

"In January, my husband's company announced that everyone was getting a 10 percent pay cut across the board," Papachristou, 37, said. "And, then, about three weeks before Nina was born, he got a call, 'Oh, we're doing another 5 percent for April.' So we've really had to rethink how long I can stay out of work."

Changes in maternity leave decisions are difficult to document or quantify, but people who track such shifts report that the cost of an extended leave is something more and more families can ill afford in a difficult economy.

Across the country, Kristin Carter, 27, of Camarillo, Calif., is preparing her nursery after trying to get pregnant for a year. She hoped she wouldn't need to return to her college teaching position full time for six months, but that has changed.

"We're so excited," Carter said. "I get pregnant. And, then, it was almost immediately that they started slowing down at my husband's job. And then, they started having less course offerings at the college that I teach at. And then, it just sort of all fell apart."

So, instead of six months, Carter will take six weeks. She's anxious that her job may be in jeopardy if she doesn't go back soon.

"The longer that that I'm away from work, the more I'm worried that they're going to discover that like, hey, 'Maybe we don't really need her,'" she said. "'Maybe we've got other people that could teach those classes.' It's not like they're trying to squeeze me out or anything like that. This is not a reflection on them. It's just the economy and the way of the world, you know?"