Working Moms

•  55% of moms with kids under 18 work full-time today, and overall, about 72% are employed.
•  One-quarter are solo moms.

• 76% of working women with children under 18 are between 30-49.
•  22% of moms are millennials.
• The median age at which women become mothers in the U.S. is 26. They are however increasingly delaying motherhood through their 20s.
• Working moms are likely to have older children. In 2019, the labor force participation rate of moms with children under age 6 was 66.4%, vs. 76.8% for moms whose youngest child was 6 to 17.

• Working moms would ideally like to work less. 42% of adults say that part-time work is ideal, and 1/3 said no work at all is ideal. Only 16% say that full-time work for a mom is ideal.
• They want to be rewarded: 81% of moms are more likely to engage if offered reward points.
• Millennial moms are active influencers. They said they retweet or re-pinned products or services online 7.8x a month. They mostly shared information about clothing, shoes, and other accessories (93%), retail stores (91%) and groceries/food and beverages (90%).

• Whether a mom is in the workforce is correlated to her husband's income in a U shape. When the husband makes a significant amount ($250,000 or higher a year), 46% of them are not in the labor force. On the other hand, when the husband makes less than $25,000 a year, 35% are stay at home moms. It's the moms in the middle, who are married to spouses with an income of $50,000- $75,000—which also covers the median income for husbands of $60,000—that don't stay home. 75% of that group is in the labor force. More information can be seen here.

•  41% of mothers were the sole or primary breadwinners for their families. This is most prevalent in the Northeast. More information, including a state-by-state breakdown, can be found here.

•  60.1% of breadwinning mothers were white; 16.2% Black; 16.4% Hispanic; and 7.3% non-Hispanic mothers of another race or ethnicity. However, this is also due to the racial makeup of motherhood; there are more white women having children. However, in relative terms, Black mothers are the most likely to be the breadwinner by a staggering margin. They're 2x as likely as white moms and more than 50% more likely than Hispanic moms. More information

• Many moms are working in low-paying jobs. 16.3% of working moms (1 in 6) who have children under age 18 are in low-wage jobs. 18.3% (one in five) who have children age 3 and under are in low-wage jobs.

• The "maternal wall" describes a bias that working mothers encounter in the workplace once she returns, surrounding her dedication and ability to perform now that she has a child, and undermines their ability to advance in the workplace.
•  43% of highly qualified women leave the workplace, or off-ramp from work, after having kids.
•  31% of women who stopped working after having kids actually wanted to keep working, but could not make it work due to a rigid workplace.

Stay-At-Home Moms (SAHM)

•  1 in 3 married-couple households in the US with kids under 18 have a stay-at-home parent (SAHP). Of those, 8 times out of 10, moms are more likely to be the one at home.
• There is a positive correlation between family size and SAHP presence- cities with large families also tend to have families where one parent is at home.
• The more educated a city's population is, the less likely it is to have SAHP.
•  Larger foreign-born populations also correlates to having more families with a SAHP.
•  Southern and Western states tend to have more SAHP versus the North and East.

US Cities with the Largest SAHP Population  

• Families with one stay-at-home parent: 52.1%; families with a stay-at-home mother: 47.3%
• Average family size: 3.65
• Population with a high school diploma or higher: 68.1%
• Population that’s foreign-born: 28.3%

• Families with one stay-at-home parent: 47.9%; families with a stay-at-home mother: 44.1%
• Average family size: 4.43
• Population with a high school diploma or higher: 57.1%
• Population that’s foreign-born: 46.1%

• Families with one stay-at-home parent: 45.9; families with a stay-at-home mother: 43.5%
• Average family size: 2.77
• Population with a high school diploma or higher: 78.6%
• Population that’s foreign-born: 38.5%

• Families with one stay-at-home parent: 45.4%; families with a stay-at-home mother: 43.5%
• Families with a stay-at-home father: 1.9%
• Average family size: 2.62
• Population with a high school diploma or higher: 78.5%
• Population that’s foreign-born: 30.3%

• Families with one stay-at-home parent: 45.2%; families with a stay-at-home mother: 44.0%
• Families with a stay-at-home father: 1.2%
• Average family size: 2.70
• Population with a high school diploma or higher: 91.9%
• Population that’s foreign-born: 48.4%