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<\/p>\nMore women are leaving their jobs, undermining their careers and earning potential and spelling trouble for the economy.<\/p>\n
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As child care costs soar and offices re-open, women pay the price<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Miya Walker, 25, wasn’t worried about child care costs<\/a> when she was pregnant with her son in 2021. Her data analyst role was remote, and her mom was around when she needed help.\u00a0<\/p>\n But after her son was born in April 2022, her employer pushed going back to the office<\/a>, an hourlong drive from her home in Snellville, Georgia. Then, her mom’s arthritis flared up.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like, a lot of women, we\u2019re 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\u2019t make it sustainable. It doesn\u2019t allow us to navigate working and being a mom.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n 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. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe research is pretty clear that if you exit the labor market or take a step back when you\u2019re young, there are benefits to it, but they\u2019re not usually financial,\u201d said Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. \u00a0<\/p>\n Why are more mothers leaving work?<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n While the Bureau of Labor Statistics warned that the unpublished data is based on a relatively small sample size, the decline mirrors long-term trends tracked by The Hamilton Project<\/a>, 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\u00a0an all-time high of 71% in September 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cWomen had been powering the post-COVID labor market recovery. But in the past six-ish, seven-ish months, that has started to weaken,\u201d said Bauer, associate director of The Hamilton Project. \u00a0<\/p>\n One likely contributor? The end of flexible pandemic-era policies like hybrid and remote work, which helped the participation rate for prime-age women \u2012 those 25 to 54 years old \u2012 surge more than 2 percentage points between August 2019 to a record high 78.4%<\/a> in August 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n “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> a human resources and technology consulting company. “And to not hide the fact that we have a dog, or we have a kid.”\u00a0<\/p>\n But the growing repeal of remote-work arrangements threatens those gains, said Stanford University economics professor Nick Bloom, who studies remote work.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Those mandates hit women \u2013\u00a0who frequently shoulder a disproportionate share of the responsibility for kids and chores<\/a>\u00a0\u2013particularly hard, especially at a time when parents are feeling pressured<\/a> to commit more hours to their children<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is now an expectation that there is more intensive parenting that is less consistent with having a career as well,\u201d said Emma Harrington, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia and a labor economist who studies remote work.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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 \u201cabnormally high turnover\u201d among senior employees, especially women.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWorking 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,\u201d Bloom said. \u201cThe push to return to the office is reversing this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But return-to-office mandates likely aren’t a \u201csmoking gun\u201d since declines in mothers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n Rather, researchers told USA TODAY a variety of factors are likely contributing to waning workforce participation.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, 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. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can’t talk about mothers with young kids without talking about immigrant mothers with young kids,\u201d Bauer said. \u00a0<\/p>\n Federal job cuts could also play a role, as women \u2013 especially Black women \u2013 have been \u201cquite successful\u201d at building careers at the federal, local and state government, according to Stefania Albanesi<\/a>, an economics professor at the University of Miami. Many of the departments targeted for layoffs had women and people of color<\/a> make up a majority of workers, according to a May report<\/a> from the National Women\u2019s Law Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n And Harrington\u2019s best guess? The rising cost of child care.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cost of and access to child care<\/a> is a huge burden for many families. Annual full-time child care for one child averages more than $16,500, according to a BabyCenter<\/a> survey of more than 2,000 mothers, and 40% of respondents said they’re stuck on waitlists averaging six months.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Of course, if you\u2019re a working parent, you can\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mothers are twice as likely to take time off from their jobs to handle child care issues, BabyCenter found<\/a>, and 45% of moms in the survey said they\u2019ve considered reducing their hours or stopping work altogether to save money on childcare. Another 13% already left the workforce for the same reason.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some families are finding that what one parent can earn isn’t enough to justify the cost, said Philip Fisher<\/a>, director of the Stanford Center on Early Childhood.<\/p>\n And because of the gender pay gap<\/a>, heterosexual couples often find it’s a better economic decision for the mom to stay home.\u00a0<\/p>\n