What's Working (And What's Not Working) for Working Moms

Motherly released its 2023 State of Motherhood survey, which includes a number of insights about what’s working and what’s not for working moms.

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For one, mothers are leaving jobs and in some cases exiting the workforce at a quickening pace, with 25% of respondents identifying as stay-at-home parents, which is up 10% from the 15% of respondents who identified as stay-at-home parents in the 2022 survey. In total, 18% of respondents had left their job or the workforce entirely within the last year.

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Given that more than 40% of women who left their jobs (or the workforce in general) did so either to be with their children or because they were unable to find childcare, it’s no surprise that the best way to entice these job-leaving mom’s back to your company (or the workforce in general) is to allow for schedule flexibility according to almost 2 out of 3 respondents (64%). 

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More than half of respondents (52%) also cited access to affordable childcare as a top factor that could make returning to work eminently more feasible. Access to affordable childcare is a major consideration for mothers currently in the workforce, as well, with nearly half of respondents relying on outside childcare in order to meet their work demands, and 63% paying for more than 30 hours of outside childcare per week.

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For those respondents who do currently have access to childcare, most are satisfied with the quality of the service provided, yet a substantial portion amounting to more than 1 out of 5 respondents is not satisfied, and for nearly 7 out of 10 of respondents who aren’t satisfied with their childcare, cost is the main factor. More than 2 out of 3 respondents spend in excess of 1 thousand dollars on childcare each month, while 18% of respondents spent between 2 and 3 thousand dollars each month, and 13% spent more than 3 thousand dollars on childcare expenses monthly. In total, more than 3 out of 10 women are spending over 2 thousand dollars each month on childcare. 

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The cost of childcare is having effects on working moms that extend outside their pocketbooks, as well. Some of those effects involve well-being, both physical and financial, given that 33% of survey respondents say that childcare expenses are often or always a source of distress. Businesses’ bottom lines also bear the brunt of some of this burden whether the company is providing employees with any childcare support or not, considering that more than half of working mothers (53%) claimed that childcare costs had made them think about leaving the workforce altogether, which will obviously impact businesses and the market in multiple ways. 

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It’s also important to note just how important childcare has become, especially in recent years in the wake of the pandemic’s onset. In light of both a heightened sensitivity about presenting illness symptoms in school as well as lingering Covid variants on top of a particularly bad resurgence of flu and RSV in 2022, 6 in 10 respondents reported having had to miss 6 or more days staying home to take care of sick children, equating to more than a full workweek away from their job as a result of insufficient childcare. That kind of lost time and efficiency in operational workflow compounds over time as it seeps down to your company’s bottom line. 

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At a time when the labor market remains critically tight, it’s important to remember that the very same labor shortage applies to childcare services too, and the inability of your employees to access those services will have repercussions that go well beyond just the families that are directly impacted.

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You can read more about this topic here.

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