A THIRD of women take off their wedding ring to bag a job: Should you?

We all know that no employer can legally ask the question, but is it surprising that many of us fear our job prospects will be affected by being young, female and visibly in a relationship?

Wearing a wedding or engagement ring symbolises many things both public and privately to you as a couple, but could it also, consciously or not, influence your potential employer's decision to give you a job?

It seems women in the UK fear it could and are taking matters into their own hands, with more than a third removing their rings while at work and 29 per cent ditching them for job interviews, according to a new survey by comparejewellery.com.

The main reason given for this is that women fear the 'signal of my relationship status would harm my career/ job prospects'. And almost three quarters of ring removers said they were concerned that employers would be put off employing or promoting them because of fears they would 'leave soon to start a family'.

Body language expert Judi James wasn't surprised by the findings and told us she understands completely why women choose to do this.

"Technically, legally women are not allowed to be judged about marital status, but in reality it can still change people's opinions.

"People make flawed assumptions by seeing something like a wedding ring and women who remove them are trying to create a blank canvas in terms of stereotyping."

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Despite the ongoing battle to reduce sexism in the workplace and to equalise benefits and responsibilities for childcare between men and women, there remains the biological fact that women need time off to start or add to their family. And many workplaces are still very make-dominated.

"Sadly, when a guy's married with a family, there's an assumption that he'll need the job even more as he's the the breadwinner, and therefore he'll be more conscientious," explains Judi. "Rarely is it ever assumed that he'll be called out when his kid has sore throat."

"And there's the archaic assumption that woman will be liable in a way dad's not."

So should more of us consider doing it to progress our careers?

"It's a tricky one," admits Judi.

"The problem is that if they do decide to call you out or you feel you are being judged, you should be able to turn down the job, as it's clearly not a company you'd want to work for. But with jobs so thin on the ground you may not have the ability to turn it down.

"Ultimately women have to use their intelligence and decide what's the right thing for them to do. Wearing a ring or not is a perception problem and it doesn't affect how well you can do the job. So I'd say it's certainly not a stupid thing to do."

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