The Washington Post recently reported that between January and June 2025, workforce participation among working moms ages 25 to 44 fell by nearly 3 percentage points. Effectively wiping out post-pandemic gains.
Am I surprised? Not even a little.
The workplace as it exists today is not sustainable for working moms. And they aren’t stepping away by mere choice. They are being pushed out by rigid return-to-office mandates, deeply ingrained bias, and broken systems that make success feel unattainable. This new data is a signal that our systems are still failing mothers.
Every working mother has a story of how motherhood impacted their career. Some are quietly let go during maternity leave. Others return to find their role diminished or eliminated entirely. Many make the calculated decision not to return at all. The common thread? While the transition into motherhood leaves no one the same, the workplace itself refuses to adapt.
What accounts for this massive impact? Women disproportionately carry the caregiving load, five to eight times more than their male partners. With the same 24 hours in the day as we had before kids, trying to do it all or “get back” to the way it was isn’t working.
As a working mom, I’ve lived the tension of juggling an ambitious career and motherhood. And I’ve coached dozens of brilliant women through the same exhausting balancing act. Let’s stop pretending the silver bullet is “self-care” or “better time management”.
The real issue is that the system was never built with mothers in mind. And it’s time for some bold rethinking. Otherwise, we will continue to lose a critical pipeline of top talent due to a complete lack of support and impossible expectations.
Keep reading to learn:
- Why so many working moms are leaving the workforce in 2025
- Why it matters more than you think
- What can we do about it – as working moms, and as leaders
WHY ARE WORKING MOMS LEAVING?
Less Flexibility
Given the demands of work, family, and life, working moms do best with flexibility. In the midst of increasing return to office mandates post-pandemic gains in hybrid and remote work are being reversed. Without these policies, caregiving becomes harder. For moms, this isn’t a perk – it’s the only way to manage work along with doctors’ appointments and soccer practice.
The Motherhood Penalty
The “motherhood penalty” refers to the negative impact on pay, career opportunities, and perceived competence after having children. For example, while the gender pay gap is 84 cents per dollar earned by men, for working moms the gap widens to 62 cents per dollar. Research shows that working mothers are also seen as less competent and committed (all while being held to stricter standards) and are less likely to receive hiring, promotion, and raise recommendations.
The worst part is that these disparities have nothing to do with actual performance data, but are driven by deeply embedded bias against mothers. What a crushing blow to know you’re doing good work but are being overlooked and undervalued simply because you’re a mom.
Burnout
According to the Moms in the Workplace Survey, 76% of working moms report struggling to balance the demands of work and parenting, and 75% say they feel burned out. These numbers don’t reflect poor performance; rather, they expose a system that sets working moms up to fail. Too often, workplaces expect moms to operate as if they don’t have caregiving responsibilities, creating unrealistic and unsustainable demands. As a result, moms are working overtime to keep up, impacting their ability to meet demands at home and leaving little time for much needed rest or recovery.
What happens next is a simple math equation: more demands than resources equals burnout. With no time left for rest or recovery, burnout becomes inevitable.
The Cost of Childcare
In the U.S., the cost of childcare often exceeds rent or a mortgage. Sometimes, a mother’s salary is equal to what she pays for childcare. This tradeoff forces many to reconsider whether working full-time makes sense. Many working moms are forced to scale back, seek part-time work, or leave entirely without affordable and reliable care options.
Add up the lack of flexibility, lower pay, and unfair bias, and it’s no wonder many women conclude that leaving the workforce is the best decision.
WHY WORKING MOMS MATTER
Working moms are good for business and the economy.
Companies that implement family-friendly policies like paid leave, flexible scheduling, and childcare support consistently see higher employee engagement, improved retention, and stronger financial performance. In fact, organizations in the top quartile for gender diversity are 25% more likely to outperform their peers in profitability.
There is also an economic advantage to increasing women’s economic participation. In 2023, Goldman Sachs reported that decreasing current gender pay and employment gaps could boost global GDP levels by up to 6%.
We’re losing our leadership pipeline.
The women leaving are not entry-level talent. These are experienced, mid-level professionals who are the next generation of senior leaders. When they drop out, we don’t just lose female representation at the top, we’re draining the pipeline entirely. And with Gen Z increasingly opting out of leadership roles, the pipeline isn’t just leaky, it’s running dry.
Working moms aren’t average leaders — they’re some of the best.
A comprehensive study from Florida State University’s business school analyzed 50 years of leadership research (from 1970 to 2020) and found that women consistently outperform men in both task-oriented leadership (agentic behaviors like assertiveness, accountability, and results focus) and relationship-oriented leadership (communal behaviors like empathy, collaboration, and communication). The research also revealed that women tend to demonstrate more effective assertiveness, while male leaders are more likely to exhibit passivity in leadership roles.
Further, a similar study from Leadership Circle, based on 360 assessments with over 84,000+ leaders and 1.5 million raters, found that women leaders show up more effectively than their male counterparts across every management and age level.
If we want a thriving economy, profitable businesses, and a robust leadership pipeline, we can’t afford to push working moms out of the workforce. The question now becomes, how do we retain them?
LEADERS: FOCUS ON SUPPORT
Start with flexibility.
The research is clear: flexible arrangements increase mother’s participation in the workforce. For working moms, flexibility isn’t just a perk, it’s what enables them to contribute to their fullest potential without burning out. When it disappears, as we’re seeing with recent return-to-office mandates, moms are the first to feel the impact.
Employers can take action by maintaining hybrid work options, offering part-time or reduced-schedule roles, avoiding late-night meetings, and respecting time boundaries.
Leaders can take it a step further by having intentional conversations with working parents to identify their “core working hours”.
Core working hours represent a mutually agreed-upon time block during the traditional workday when parents are consistently available for meetings, collaboration, or focused work. Outside of these blocks, they may work or manage caregiving. This practice helps set clear and realistic expectations around flexibility while maintaining accountability and trust.
Train your people leaders to be more supportive of working moms.
According to the Moms in the Workplace survey, 52% of working mothers said their workplace is unsupportive of their needs as parents. The top drivers of turnover? Feeling undervalued, micromanaged, and burned out. The biggest barrier to success isn’t bad intent; many leaders simply don’t know how to lead differently. Most leaders need training on how to:
- Provide meaningful recognition to drive motivation, performance, and retention.
- Identify and interrupt bias, especially assumptions about mothers’ competence, commitment or ambition.
- Lead with empathy by developing emotional intelligence, active listening, and effective communication skills.
- Shift from time-based to results-based performance management to focus on outcomes, not hours (see more below).
Shift to results-based management.
It’s time for organizations and leaders to shift their focus from monitoring “butts in seats” to measuring real outcomes. It shouldn’t matter how or when the work gets done. What matters is that the work is high quality and delivered on time. When leaders offer autonomy and trust, employees become more motivated, engaged, and positioned to perform at their best.
This necessitates a cultural shift away from the glorification of overwork to model a culture that values rest as a strategy for sustained performance. As a leader, this culture shift starts with you. Model healthy work habits, honor your own boundaries, and treat rest as a part of performance, not a reward for exhaustion. That looks like…
- Scheduling that 10 pm email to go out during business hours
- Signing off at 4 pm to be on time for kid’s soccer practice
- Blocking time for lunch or a midday walk and actually taking it
- Praising great work delivered with balance, not just hustle
- Starting meetings at 5 minutes past the hour to allow for breathers and bio breaks
WORKING MOMS: FOCUS ON VISIBILITY
Ask for what you need.
You don’t get what you don’t ask for. And yet many of my clients avoid that very thing despite knowing exactly what they need to be successful. The reality is that often your manager may not know that you’re drowning, and by revealing what you need, you open the door to possibilities.
Ask yourself: “What would make my life easier and help me perform at my best?” Whether it’s more flexibility or autonomy, pay, respect for boundaries, or support, don’t make the mistake of not initiating the conversation to explore a better work arrangement.
Here are my top 5 tips to support you in making your ask without coming off as “aggressive”:
- Know your worth: Research your value and document your achievements so you can clearly and confidently articulate what you bring to the table.
- Set a clear objective: Identify exactly what you want (e.g., to come in early so you can leave by 4 pm, to not have meetings after 5 pm, to work from home 2 days a week, etc.) and know where you can and can’t compromise.
- Frame your request as mutually beneficial: Know what matters to your manager and connect back to how your request will support their goals as well.
- Balance assertiveness with empathy: Advocate for your needs while taking time to understand others’ barriers and perspectives.
- Be willing to negotiate: Approach the conversation with realistic expectations by understanding you may not get all of what you want, but even a little more is better than where you stand today.
Remember, the cost of not asking is often higher than the temporary discomfort of having the conversation. You got this!
Make your results visible.
If you have a huge win but don’t tell anyone about it, will it help you earn that promotion? Probably not. We know working moms are often assumed to be less productive or committed, so why aren’t we shouting our impact from the rooftops? The reality is that simply doing great work isn’t enough if the right people don’t know about it.
This is not about bragging, it’s about creating a system for managing up, so your manager knows the value you bring and can clearly articulate it in the rooms that matter. Here’s how you can do this:
- Document your wins in real time: Make it a habit to write down wins at the end of every week. Not only is this a confidence boost, but it also allows you to have concrete examples of what you’re accomplishing.
- Turn your 1:1s into visibility opportunities: Use regular check-ins strategically by coming prepared to share 2-3 wins framed as progress updates. Balance this by discussing areas where you want feedback on potential solutions or need more clarity to drive action.
- Quantify your impact: Make the implicit explicit by showing concrete metrics that illustrate your progress. Better yet, create a dashboard so you can systematically demonstrate month-over-month improvements.
Remember, if you don’t advocate for your own results, no one else will.
Parent out loud.
Economist Emily Oster coined the term “secret parenting” to describe how working parents often hide their caregiving responsibilities to avoid appearing “less committed.” This approach often backfires. When we parent in secret, we actually perpetuate the myth that successful professionals don’t have whole lives outside of work.
Parenting out loud doesn’t mean oversharing or making your kids the center of every conversation. It means normalizing the reality that school pick up can’t happen after 6 pm. Here are some quick tips on how to be more transparent appropriately:
- Leave loudly. One of my favorite bosses advised me to “leave loudly”, essentially be matter-of-fact about schedule needs. It’s the simple, “I am off for 4:30 pm pick-up, see you tomorrow!”
- Model balance: Be open about needing to take a call in the car, answer an email after the kids go to bed, or reschedule meetings around school events.
- Be consistent (with boundaries and results): When you reliably honor both your family time (“no calls during dinner”) and your work commitments, it reinforces that your boundaries enable better performance.
Seek Support.
Many of my clients come to me feeling like they should be able to navigate work challenges, leadership growth, and motherhood entirely on their own. The result? They stay stuck longer, miss opportunities, and burn out trying.
The truth is, you don’t have to do this alone. The most successful leaders get where they want to go faster because they compressed years of random trial and error into months of focused growth with the right support.
While there may be little “village” to call on, here are three ways you can build your support network:
- Find a mentor: Look for someone two or more levels above you that you admire and has navigated similar challenges. You don’t have to go into a formal “Will you be my mentor?” pitch. Simply ask for advice on current projects or decisions.
- Connect to community: Surround yourself with other working moms through book clubs, ERGs (employee resource groups), professional associations, or even a group you create on your own. There is power in being with people who understand what you are going through.
- Invest in a professional coach. A skilled coach can help you see blind spots, develop strategic thinking, and accelerate your growth in ways that mentors and peers can’t. Choosing a coach who specializes in working mothers means you’ll have someone who truly understands the unique challenges of leading at work while raising a family.
The working moms who thrive aren’t the ones who do it all alone. They’re the ones focused on what matters, strategically finding the right support to lead a life and career that fosters both joy and impact.
If you’re a working mom in need of support… I got you.
I work with ambitious working mothers who are ready to stop managing their careers and start leading them. Schedule a free chemistry call to explore how coaching can help you achieve the professional growth and work-life integration you’ve been seeking.
