Mothers of young children flooded into the workforce during the Covid-19 pandemic, driven by a tight labor market, government child care subsidies and the sudden abundance of remote work.
Years later they are still in use. According to an analysis of government data by the Hamilton Project, an economic policy research group at the Brookings Institution, the share of women with children under 5 who are working or looking for work peaked at nearly 71 percent in September 2023 and remains above pre-pandemic levels.
The growth is due in part to more employers having flexible office policies, a lasting legacy of the pandemic era. More workplaces are at least partially remote, allowing parents—particularly mothers, who often shoulder the majority of their families’ childcare responsibilities—to better balance their responsibilities as employees and caregivers. This is particularly true for well-educated women in white-collar jobs.
According to some economists, there is also likely a darker catalyst for the increased labor force participation of mothers with young children: More women feel that they need to earn a paycheck to afford family life.
“It’s nothing to be proud of,” said Kathryn Anne Edwards, a labor economist and policy consultant. “If anything, it just reflects that they may be more desperate for money.”
For families across the country, the cost of living has become a growing challenge. Food prices have risen by more than 25 percent in the last five years. Many Americans struggle to pay for health care, education and housing. According to the Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank, child care prices have risen more than twice as fast as overall prices in most states.
Financial pressures may force more mothers of young children, who generally work less than other women in their prime working years, to enter and remain in the workforce. The number of new hires in January was higher than expected, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.
Kelsey Whitlatch, a mother of two in Moundsville, West Virginia, quit her job as a hairdresser in October 2023, a month before the birth of her second son. A year later, she got a job at a daycare center, but it closed soon after.
Ms Whitlatch, 28, said she had considered not working to focus on her children, now aged five and two. But her husband, a bridge inspector for the state, doesn’t make enough money to support the family alone, especially given the rising cost of food and utilities.
In the months she wasn’t working, her family relied on food stamps and struggled to pay their bills. She was so behind on her car payments that she feared it would be repossessed.
“We were doing so badly,” she said.
She now brings home about $400 a week and looks after a handful of children with another mother who worked at the daycare. She also has a business, Sugar Momma’s Cottage Home Bakery, which sells cookies and elaborately frosted cakes.
“Every day I’m grateful – I know we could definitely be doing a lot worse,” she said. “I’m glad we’re at least holding out somewhat.”
Mothers of young children have lower labor force participation than other women for many reasons, including a lack of affordable child care and caregiving responsibilities that conflict with work schedules. Women who leave the workforce typically do so around the time their children are born and return when their children are older and parenting responsibilities are less burdensome. The labor force participation rate for mothers with children ages 5 to 12 was about 77 percent at the end of last year.
However, staying at home as a mother for a longer period of time is only possible if a family can live on one income. This arrangement seems increasingly out of reach. Last year, more than 70 percent of Americans said raising children was unaffordable, according to the American Family Survey, an annual survey of 3,000 Americans.
“What’s striking is how widespread this concern is,” said Chris Karpowitz, a political science professor at Brigham Young University and one of the survey’s authors. “Americans of all stripes are concerned about the cost of raising children.”
Poorer families are being squeezed even more by slower wage growth, persistent inflation and rising child care costs, said Corinne Low, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours.” This, coupled with a decline in hiring, has left many families more reliant on “flex” second earners to pick up the slack.
“This means, among other things, that families may not be able to afford not to have their mother in the workforce,” she said.
Other factors driving more women with young children to work include changing employers’ expectations of where work is done. Remote work arrangements are often more favorable in white-collar jobs, and many companies have become less strict about on-site work. This has enabled some women to better coordinate their office hours with their children’s care times.
Women have also benefited from the health care boom, which has driven job growth. More than 40 percent of the 2.8 million jobs created between November 2023 and November 2025 were filled by women in health care and social assistance, according to an analysis of government data by Indeed Hiring Lab. Roles such as caregiving, although often personal, have established shifts that allow mothers to more reliably anticipate their childcare needs, Dr. Low.
“It works for women because it is structured and predictable and has strong boundaries,” she said.
Efforts are underway in New Mexico, New York City and elsewhere to make child care more accessible, which could increase labor force participation rates for mothers with young children.
Still, the lack of affordable child care is a prevalent barrier. The childcare subsidies from the pandemic period have expired. The federal government is seeking to freeze about $10 billion in child care and social services funding earmarked for the Democratic-led states of New York, California, Minnesota, Illinois and Colorado. And there is evidence that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is reducing the supply of child care workers and making the problem worse.
Cameron Hulin, 28, lives in Youngsville, Louisiana, and has a three-year-old daughter. She and her husband, an electrician, have cut expenses but still struggle to come up with about $550 a month to send their daughter to preschool. They tried to sell their home and downsize but had no luck.
With another baby on the way, Ms. Hulin and her husband decided it made sense for her to become a stay-at-home mom rather than pay for the care of her two children. She plans to leave her child care job at a nonprofit in May when her daughter’s program ends for the summer.
“It’s hard to walk away from something I enjoy,” she said. But she added: “My goal is still fulfilled to be with my children.”