What’s Working for Mothers
Employer support can mean the difference between barely surviving and fully thriving in the workplace.
Lizz Klein’s maternity leave in late 2022 to early 2023 after she had her first child was like that of many other mothers—both thrilling and exhausting. But during her 14 weeks off, Klein’s mind kept wandering back to work and to one terrifying thought: She may not have a job to return to once her leave was over.
Klein had seen it happen time and time again during her tenure at the tech startup where she worked. New parents were terminated one by one shortly after returning to work after having a child. With that in mind, Klein decided to keep herself visible to her colleagues and manager during her leave. She checked email; she replied and reacted to Slack messages. And even though Klein primarily worked remotely, she went in to the office on the first day her parental leave was over to show that she was excited to come back to work and ready to focus on her job.
But none of that mattered. Not long after she returned to work, Klein got a message from her boss asking for a meeting. She was told she had to leave the company.
When she asked why, her employer said there were performance problems, although she said she had never received any complaints. And her performance reviews were all excellent.
“I have no other reason to believe that I was fired for any other reason than having a child,” says Klein, who is now working with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to sue her employer for wrongful termination.
Even more crushing for Klein: She had gotten pregnant again and lost the baby a short time later, citing the stress of losing her job unexpectedly as a reason. “I lost my job, and I lost my baby. I always wanted two under 2. It wasn’t just losing a baby—it was losing this vision of what my family looked like,” Klein says.
The experience taught her one thing: Some companies can be cruel and short-sighted when it comes to working mothers. And that needs to change.
Grim Statistics
Klein’s story is particularly egregious, but it’s just one example of how many working moms have fared in the workplace: unsupported, unheard, and underappreciated. It’s a phenomenon known as the motherhood penalty: the set of challenges mothers face in the workplace, from stifled job opportunities to lack of support and pay stagnation.
The story of how having a child negatively impacts the careers of working women is a familiar one: Because women traditionally bear the majority of child care responsibilities, they often miss out on career advancement as a result. Sometimes, the expenses of having a child push women out of the workforce altogether: A report published last fall by the Bank of America Institute found that the cost of day care has soared to an average of more than $700 a month, up 32% from 2019.
An analysis by financial information publisher Bankrate of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey data found that mothers with children under age 18 earned 31% less in wages than fathers with children under 18 in 2023. That gap translates to a loss of roughly $1,400 a month, or $17,000 annually. Those lost wages add up, amounting to roughly $500,000 for mothers over a 30-year career.
Changing the Narrative
But these statistics don’t capture the experience of all working parents. In a growing number of workplaces, the story is being rewritten. About 70% of U.S. women with children under the age of 5 are in the workforce, an all-time high, according to a recent analysis of federal data by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. The new narrative is one in which mothers, with support from their employers—in the form of flexibility, career opportunities, and robust family benefits—can thrive. And one in which employers can thrive, too, by retaining the unique skill sets that working moms bring to their employers.
Cheri Wheeler, vice president and senior consultant at Kelly Benefits Strategies, a benefits consultancy firm in Sparks, Md., says mothers have special skills that benefit employers, such as being dedicated, highly motivated, and adept at juggling tasks and responsibilities. “Mothers can multitask better than anyone else,” she says.
Many industry experts point to the extreme dichotomy of employer support for working moms, in which new mothers are pushed out of the workplace by some companies and given the tools they need to thrive in others.
Groups are rallying for the latter in record numbers. Organizations such as Moms First, a nonprofit that aims to promote gender equality and support mothers in the workforce, are advocating for more employer support and camaraderie among working mothers. Individual mothers are making a difference too. This fall, Klein is opening Wild and Wonderful Play Café in Ranson, W.Va., which will provide a space for mothers to work and a play area for their children. And a growing number of employers are answering the call by way of enhanced benefits and other resources for the mothers they employ, such as child care assistance, enhanced parental leave, and flexibility. Klein knows firsthand how much difference that can make. “Workplace support would have changed my life,” she says.
The United States is so far behind the rest of the world with family leave. Every other [industrialized] country has some sort of national mandated family-leave policy.
A Win-Win
Some employers realize that when they support the moms who work for them, their business also benefits. Research from The Best Place for Working Parents, a Fort Worth, Texas-based organization that recognizes employers supporting working parents, has found that such employers enhance the retention rate, loyalty, and productivity of the mothers who work for them.
For example, organizations that offer onsite child care for their workers have a retention rate 7.4 times higher than employers who do not offer this benefit, and their employees are 8.9 times more loyal to their companies. The support these companies offer starts early and extends throughout a child’s life—from fertility benefits and prenatal care, to parental leave, to child care benefits.
“First and foremost is family and parental leave—you can’t go anywhere without it,” Wheeler says. “The United States is so far behind the rest of the world with family leave. Every other [industrialized] country has some sort of national mandated family-leave policy.”
Good workplace benefits must include family benefits for men to allow a balance of responsibility for couples—thus allowing women to truly benefit from the offered flexibility.
Although most employers still do not offer paid parental leave for mothers or fathers, the percentage that do is rising. According to SHRM’s 2024 Employee Benefits Survey, paid parental leave is now offered by 40% of employers, up from 33% in 2022.
“It absolutely sets the tone,” says Rachel Pollack, chief people officer at QBE Insurance North America in New York City, of paid parental leave. “It’s making a very clear statement that the organization supports this and will be supporting working parents later on.”
For its part, QBE this spring enhanced its paid parental leave program to offer at least 12 weeks of leave to all parents, inclusive of adoption, birth, foster care, and surrogacy. Birth parents can take up to 22 weeks total of paid time off. Previously, the company offered eight weeks for all parents. “Attitudes are really shifting around parental leave,” Pollack says. “It’s a topic that has been evolving, and it’s a real opportunity as an employer to drive broader societal change.”
Child care assistance, from helping employees find care to providing subsidies and onsite options, is also an essential piece of the puzzle. It’s something Megan Schulte, vice president of human resources at Frontier Co-op, an herbs and spices company, knows all about. Frontier runs its own child care center at its Norway, Iowa, headquarters, which supports children from the time they’re 6 weeks old until they turn 12. The services come at a bargain price: just $2 to $3 an hour per child for employees. The assistance allows workers at Frontier to balance their work responsibilities with their personal ones and not have to worry about finding quality, convenient, and affordable child care—a common reason why many mothers leave the workforce.
Frontier’s onsite child care has also made a world of personal difference for Schulte, a mom of three. Thanks to her employer’s child care center, she knew exactly how she was going to manage her work and personal responsibilities when she was planning her family.
“I did want a career; I didn’t want to stay at home,” she says. “Being able to experience both, I’ve never felt that I had to make a decision between the two of them.” In fact, Schulte was promoted several times at Frontier while building her family after starting there as an executive assistant in 2012.
It also doesn’t hurt that the child care center is a boon to the company’s attraction and retention efforts, Schulte adds: “Having your kids onsite and being able to see them throughout the day and interact with them … once you have that experience, leaving that is very, very difficult.”
Other employers are turning to out-of-the-box benefits for working mothers, such as breast milk shipping, which is tailored for nursing moms who must travel for work. It’s a benefit offered by companies including Chevron and Salesforce, and it is often touted by industry experts as a valuable offering to help moms make a smooth transition back to work after they give birth.
“All of these practices are ways to ensure that working moms are provided with the best opportunities to succeed and rise in the ranks as they desire,” says Ella Washington, professor of practice at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and founder and CEO of Ellavate Solutions, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., that focuses on inclusion, equity, and diversity.
Having your kids onsite and being able to see them throughout the day and interact with them … once you have that experience, leaving that is very, very difficult.
Dads Need Support, Too
An important element of helping working mothers thrive is making sure fathers are getting the support they need, too. Historically, women have been the sole beneficiaries of paid parental leave and other child care benefits. But that often continues the cycle of making women be the primary caregivers in their families while men are able to prioritize—and advance in—their careers.
“Good workplace benefits must include family benefits for men to allow a balance of responsibility for couples—thus allowing women to truly benefit from the offered flexibility,” Washington says, adding that family benefits should also be considerate of same-sex couples and other family structures.
Being inclusive was essential for QBE when the firm enhanced its parental leave policy, Pollack says. “Having the gender-neutral component to this program is equally as important to accelerate women’s progress in the workplace,” she explains. “It’s often the woman who takes leave for family, and making sure that men have access to these same benefits is going to support the other parents, no matter what your family situation is.”
Flexibility Matters
Another key component to ensuring parents thrive professionally, experts say, is having flexibility and access to remote-work options, which can be crucial for working mothers to be able to balance their family and work responsibilities.
Research shows that flexible work options can move the needle: A whopping 80% of women said remote work is among the most important factors to consider when evaluating a new job, while 60% of them said they would look for a new job if they weren’t allowed to continue to work remotely in their current positions, according to a 2021 FlexJobs survey.
“Flexible work and work from home allows women, or any person, to work in a way that suits their lifestyle,” says Rachel Sederberg, senior economist at Lightcast, a Boston-based labor market analytics firm. “They can take an hour off to drop the kids off at school or make dinner and then work later in the evening. It can still result in great productivity, but in a way that’s flexible, so they can get everything done.”
Finally, a shift in attitude is just as essential, industry experts say. Just as—when possible—not being rigid about where or when work gets done is important, so, too, is making sure that hiring managers are not shorting the salaries of women who have gaps in their resumes.
Without a shift in attitudes and more robust benefits for working mothers, employers risk losing out, as well, experts say.
“You’re going to see absenteeism. You’re going to see women not entering back into the workforce,” Schulte notes. “That impacts efficiencies, it impacts service metrics, it starts to impact your profitability. Essentially, employers need to know that it’s going to affect their bottom line in the end if they don’t start to find solutions to some of these workforce challenges.”
Kathryn Mayer is a senior specialist, B2C content, at SHRM. Illustrations by Eglė Plytnikaitė
The Fatherhood Bonus?The often-detrimental impact of having a child on a mother’s career is well documented. But what’s the impact of having children on fathers’ careers? Research has shown that fathers have historically not faced the same workplace penalties as mothers do—even finding that men who work full time experience a pay “bonus” when they have children. Bankrate’s 2023 analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey data found that full-time working fathers with children under the age of 18 make roughly 23% more than full-time working men with no children in that age bracket. However, Sadie Funk, national director of The Best Place for Working Parents, says it’s not always easy for fathers in the workplace, and employers would be wise to take them into consideration with the benefits and support they provide. “The birth of a child is a defining moment in anyone’s life, especially for working parents who find themselves balancing professional responsibilities and new family obligations,” she says. Things are slowly changing, in part because fathers are “increasingly seeking more time with their families,” Funk says, which may impact the time they spend working and, subsequently, their professional development or promotion opportunities. Single fathers and families with two dads may experience even more challenges with juggling both their careers and family, she adds. That may be why more benefits for both moms and dads—especially paternity leave and parental leave—are gaining traction, Funk says, because scores of research have found that the absence of adequate paternity leave may result in stress and decreased job satisfaction, potentially leading to turnover. —K.M. |
The Nonparent Worker PenaltyEarly in Vicki Salemi’s career, at a previous employer, she was the only manager on her team without children. When her colleagues who were parents left the office or took time off for their child care responsibilities, Salemi regularly worked longer hours, hearing time and again: “Well, you don’t have kids.” “It felt like a punishment with an incorrect assumption that I didn’t have a robust life outside work and important responsibilities just because I didn’t have kids,” she says. Salemi, now a career expert at jobs site Monster, is far from alone. According to a 2022 ResumeLab survey of more than 900 respondents (8 in 10 of whom are parents), 72% said they’ve noticed that workers who aren’t parents have been treated unfairly at their companies because they don’t have children. Respondents also said that, due to assumptions about their availability, workers without children are frequently asked to work longer hours to make up for the time their colleagues who are parents take for their family responsibilities. The vast majority of respondents (85%) also said that people with children have priority when planning vacations and days off at their companies. “It may be ever-so-slight, or sometimes completely blatant, but sometimes there is unfair treatment of the child-free community in the workplace,” Salemi says. It’s a situation employers might want to think more about: The number of adults without children is on the rise. According to a 2021 Pew Research Center report, 44% of U.S. adults ages 18 to 49 say it is “not too likely” or “not at all likely” that they will have children someday. Salemi says organizations must keep this in mind when they prioritize working parents and make sure all their workers feel supported. “This is a ‘yes, and’ situation—it’s important to support workers with children, and it’s equally as important to support workers without children,” she says. —K.M. |
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