The Future of Working Motherhood asked nearly 500 working mothers what it would actually take to keep them. The answer wasn't complicated.
The Numbers
- 60% of working mothers seriously considered leaving their job within a year of having a baby.
- 40% stayed only because reentry expectations went unchanged, not because anything genuinely improved.
- 68% cited their manager and workplace culture as the biggest factor in whether reentry worked at all.
Whether a company keeps its best people has less to do with ambition or capability, and everything to do with whether anyone bothered to ask what would actually help. The data says the system is still failing working mothers in the exact same ways, month after month, issue after issue.
The talent isn't leaving because it stopped being capable. It's leaving because no one built anything sturdy enough to hold it.
The talent isn't leaving because it stopped being capable. It's leaving because no one built anything sturdy enough to hold it.
From the 2026 report, The Future of Working Motherhood
