Miya Walker did the math and it didn't add up. Daycare for her son cost $1,500 a month. Her commute was an hour each way. Her mom's arthritis meant no free babysitting. So, the 25-year-old data analyst quit.

She's not alone. Federal data shows mothers with young kids are leaving the workforce at alarming rates, reversing pandemic-era gains that saw women's workforce participation hit record highs just last year.

The numbers tell the story: 66.4% of women with children under six were working as of August, down nearly 2 percentage points from the previous year. Meanwhile, fathers' participation actually increased to 95.6%. After powering the post-COVID job recovery, mothers are suddenly heading for the exits.

Weighing the Benefits

Lauren Bauer from the Brookings Institution doesn't sugarcoat it: "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."

The biggest culprit? Companies dragging workers back to offices. Amazon, AT&T, Boeing, Walmart - they're all demanding five days a week in person. For mothers who've been juggling work and kids thanks to pandemic flexibility, it's a dealbreaker.

"There are very few gifts from the pandemic, but one of them was this ability for us to be our whole selves," says Laine Thomas Conway from consulting firm Alight. "And to not hide the fact that we have a dog, or we have a kid."

Daycare Plays A Major Part

Stanford economist Nick Bloom, who studies remote work, is blunt about the impact: "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. The push to return to the office is reversing this."

Research backs him up. When University of Pittsburgh researchers tracked 3 million tech and finance workers, they found "abnormally high turnover" among senior employees after return-to-office mandates - especially women.

But it's not just about remote work. Childcare costs are insane. Annual full-time care averages $16,500 per kid, according to a BabyCenter survey. Forty percent of parents sit on waitlists averaging six months. You can't exactly tell your boss you need half a year off while waiting for a daycare spot.

The survey found 45% of moms have considered reducing hours or quitting entirely to save on childcare. Another 13% already did. When one parent's entire salary goes to daycare, the math stops making sense.

The Pressure to Balance Work and Motherhood

Emma Harrington, a University of Virginia labor economist, points to another pressure: "There is now an expectation that there is more intensive parenting that is less consistent with having a career as well." Translation: society expects you to be both a perfect employee and a perfect parent. Something's got to give.

Immigration changes matter too. Over a million immigrant workers left the labor force between January and July. Many immigrant women work in childcare, so when they leave, care becomes harder to find and more expensive for everyone else.

Rachel Cola, 29, quit her occupational therapist job after having her son in September 2024. She doesn't plan to return. "I don't feel like I took an easy way out, by any means," she says.

Leaving Hurts Future Financial Gains

But the costs are real. Women who take career breaks face what researchers call the "motherhood penalty" - permanent damage to earnings and advancement. Women already earn just 85% of what men make, despite being the majority of college-educated workers.

"Unfortunately, people don't realize what a serious decision that is to step away," warns Cornell economist Francine Blau. "Breaks in labor force attachment set you back, and you have to climb back up to where you were when you left."

Philip Fisher from Stanford's Center on Early Childhood found mothers forced to leave work during the pandemic reported serious emotional distress - 63% experienced increased stress, 43% loneliness, and 42% anxiety.

The broader economic implications are serious. With an aging workforce, declining birth rates, and fewer immigrants, America needs every worker it can get. Women leaving means slower growth and potentially higher inflation.

Yet for women like Walker, watching her son catch bugs in the backyard beats spreadsheets and commutes. "It makes my heart very happy and at peace," she says.

An Impossible Situation

The problem isn't that some women choose to stay home. It's that so many feel they have no choice. Between inflexible employers, astronomical childcare costs, and societal pressure to be superhuman, the system's basically designed to push mothers out.

Companies spent years talking about supporting working parents. Now they're calling everyone back to offices while childcare costs soar and support systems crumble. Then they act surprised when women quit.

Walker wanted to work. She had the education, the skills, the desire. But when society makes it impossible to be both a mother and an employee, something breaks. Right now, it's women's careers.

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