REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WORK - DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES

Quebec and Denmark passed legislation in 1981 that aims to protect pre gnant women and their unborn children from health hazards in the workp lace. Finland passed similar legislation in 1991, While these measures have much in common, they are applied in very different ways, Approxi mately 1 % of pregnant working women benefit from a ''special maternit y leave'' in Denmark, compared with 0.1 % in Finland while in Quebec, nearly 40% of working women benefit from preventive reassignment ment measures during their pregnancies, In this article, we will analyze th e reasons for these disparities between rates of utilization in Finlan d, Denmark, and Quebec in light of the Quebec experience over the last 16 years.