More women are leaving their jobs, undermining their careers and earning potential and spelling trouble for the economy.
As child care costs soar and offices re-open, women pay the price
Miya Walker, mother of a 3-year-old in Georgia, says child care costs and mandatory returns to the office mean she has become a stay-at-home parent.
Miya Walker, 25, wasn’t worried about child care costs when she was pregnant with her son in 2021. Her data analyst role was remote, and her mom was around when she needed help.
But after her son was born in April 2022, her employer pushed going back to the office, an hourlong drive from her home in Snellville, Georgia. Then, her mom’s arthritis flared up.
Walker said she worked in a hybrid model for a few months after her maternity leave, but soon realized “it just didn’t make sense, financially.” The day care she wanted to send her son to cost $1,500 per month. Plus, hearing his cries when she left for work was unbearable. She quit.
“I feel like, a lot of women, we’re educated, and we have the ability to work, and we want to contribute to the workforce,” Walker said. “It’s just, you know, circumstances. It doesn’t make it sustainable. It doesn’t allow us to navigate working and being a mom.”
Federal data shows a growing share of mothers with young children in America are exiting the workforce, chipping away at gains made during the COVID-19 pandemic. Economists warn the decision to step away, even temporarily, could have lasting damage on their earnings and careers.
“The research is pretty clear that if you exit the labor market or take a step back when you’re young, there are benefits to it, but they’re not usually financial,” said Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.
Why are more mothers leaving work?
Bureau of Labor Statistics data shared with USA TODAY shows 66.4% of women with children under six participated in the labor force as of August, a nearly 2 percentage point decline from the year prior. Men’s participation rate grew 0.4 percentage points to 95.6% in that time frame.
While the Bureau of Labor Statistics warned that the unpublished data is based on a relatively small sample size, the decline mirrors long-term trends tracked by The Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative at the Brookings Institution, which found labor force participation rates for women with children under five remain higher than pre-COVID figures but have slipped nearly 3 percentage points from an all-time high of 71% in September 2023.
“Women had been powering the post-COVID labor market recovery. But in the past six-ish, seven-ish months, that has started to weaken,” said Bauer, associate director of The Hamilton Project.
One likely contributor? The end of flexible pandemic-era policies like hybrid and remote work, which helped the participation rate for prime-age women ‒ those 25 to 54 years old ‒ surge more than 2 percentage points between August 2019 to a record high 78.4% in August 2024.
“There are very few gifts from the pandemic, but one of them was this ability for us to be our whole selves,” said Laine Thomas Conway, vice president of delivery enablement and engagement at Alight, a human resources and technology consulting company. “And to not hide the fact that we have a dog, or we have a kid.”
But the growing repeal of remote-work arrangements threatens those gains, said Stanford University economics professor Nick Bloom, who studies remote work.
While a hybrid work arrangement is still more common in corporate America, in recent months Amazon, AT&T, Boeing, Walmart and other major companies have issued stricter mandates, calling some staffers back to the office five days a week.
Those mandates hit women – who frequently shoulder a disproportionate share of the responsibility for kids and chores –particularly hard, especially at a time when parents are feeling pressured to commit more hours to their children.
“There is now an expectation that there is more intensive parenting that is less consistent with having a career as well,” said Emma Harrington, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia and a labor economist who studies remote work.
Last year researchers from the University of Pittsburgh tracked 3 million tech and finance workers on LinkedIn to analyze the impact of these mandates in 54 S&P 500 firms and found “abnormally high turnover” among senior employees, especially women.
“Working from home made it easier to juggle childcare and work. Home working saves Americans an average of 75 minutes a day, which for folks looking after kids is extremely valuable,” Bloom said. “The push to return to the office is reversing this.”
But return-to-office mandates likely aren’t a “smoking gun” since declines in mothers’ participation rates are taking place across the board, not just among college-educated women more likely to be affected by these mandates, according to Harrington. Data from Brookings shows the share of women with young kids who telework has remained above 30% the past year and a half.
Rather, researchers told USA TODAY a variety of factors are likely contributing to waning workforce participation.
Bauer pointed to broader economic trends like the decline in immigrant workers. More than 1 million immigrants left the labor force between January and July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center, and data from The Hamilton Project shows prime-age, foreign-born women’s participation rate has been on the decline since its most recent peak in 2023.
“You can’t talk about mothers with young kids without talking about immigrant mothers with young kids,” Bauer said.
Federal job cuts could also play a role, as women – especially Black women – have been “quite successful” at building careers at the federal, local and state government, according to Stefania Albanesi, an economics professor at the University of Miami. Many of the departments targeted for layoffs had women and people of color make up a majority of workers, according to a May report from the National Women’s Law Center.
And Harrington’s best guess? The rising cost of child care.
Cost of and access to child care is a huge burden for many families. Annual full-time child care for one child averages more than $16,500, according to a BabyCenter survey of more than 2,000 mothers, and 40% of respondents said they’re stuck on waitlists averaging six months.
“Of course, if you’re a working parent, you can’t tell your employer that you need six months off while you wait for a spot at daycare to open up,” said Robin Hilmantel, senior director of editorial strategy and growth at BabyCenter.
Mothers are twice as likely to take time off from their jobs to handle child care issues, BabyCenter found, and 45% of moms in the survey said they’ve considered reducing their hours or stopping work altogether to save money on childcare. Another 13% already left the workforce for the same reason.
Some families are finding that what one parent can earn isn’t enough to justify the cost, said Philip Fisher, director of the Stanford Center on Early Childhood.
And because of the gender pay gap, heterosexual couples often find it’s a better economic decision for the mom to stay home.
What women lose, and gain, when they leave the workforce
A 2016 survey from Pew Research found most Americans believe children are better off with a parent at home. And while both genders prefer to work full time, women are more likely than men to say they prefer staying at home, according to a 2025 Gallup survey.
Rachel Cola, 29, left her job as an occupational therapist after giving birth to her son in September 2024, telling USA TODAY she couldn’t stand spending any amount of time away from him. She doesn’t see herself returning to work.
“I don’t feel like I took an easy way out, by any means,” Cola said.
Research shows stepping away from work – especially when left with no alternatives – can be both emotionally and financially stressful for women.
“Some women choose to take a step back from the workforce, which could very much that can be their decision. And that’s a choice and that’s fine,” Bauer said. “But the problem is when you’re forced to.”
Fisher, director of the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, found mothers forced to leave the workforce or reduce their working hours during the pandemic reported higher levels of emotional distress, especially stress (63%), loneliness (43%) and anxiety (42%).
Leaving the workforce can also hamper women’s wages and career trajectory, something researchers call the “motherhood penalty.”
Recent data from Pew Research shows women earned an average of 85% of what men earned in 2024, despite making up the majority of the college-educated labor force.
“Unfortunately, people don’t realize what a serious decision that is to step away,” said Francine Blau, an economics professor emeritus at Cornell University. “Breaks in labor force attachment set you back, and you have to climb back up to where you were when you left. So staying in, if at all possible, is much better for a long-term career perspective.”
More women exiting the workforce could also have broader implications for the economy, especially when an aging workforce, lower birth rates and a declining number of immigrants squeeze the labor force.
“To have any particular group be cutting back at this time is concerning,” Blau said. “It could contribute to inflation, it could contribute to slower growth.”
But for some, including Walker, the mother based in Georgia, the perks of staying at home with her son are worth the tradeoffs. She told USA TODAY she treasures her time reading to him, playing pretend and watching him light up while catching bugs outside.
“It makes my heart very happy and at peace,” she said.
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach Madeline at memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ on X.