Maternity Protection Issues and Working Mothers’ Experience in Asia: A Systematic Review

This review examines the challenges related to maternity protection experienced by women in the workplace and highlights the need for broader social science research in Asia to better inform workplace practices and policy development. A comprehensive search of eight major databases was conducted using the search terms maternity protection and maternal health. All English articles within the social sciences published between January 2009 and February 2019 were included. Removal of duplicates and screening the full-text articles using eligibility criteria were used to finalise the number of articles. A total of 12 studies were included. Six key themes identified as maternity protection issues and challenges experienced by women in the workplace were: managing maternity ( n = 1); maternity infrastructure ( n = 2); understanding issues of inequality in maternity protection ( n = 2); returning to work after confinement ( n = 2); best practices of maternity protection ( n = 1); and challenges and support of maternity protection ( n = 3). Even though virtually all Asian countries have adopted legislative provisions on maternity protection at work, the findings show that working mothers in Asia continue to have limited access to maternity entitlements and are discriminated against during pregnancy. Given the small number of studies, future research should further explore the local cultural variations on maternity issues to address the needs of working mothers and improve maternity protection policies.