Why Working Moms Are Walking Out — And What Employers Are Getting So Wrong

The Great Exit No One Saw Coming

In October 2025, KPMG released The Great Exit by Mathew Nestler, PhD — a chilling look at the wave of women quietly disappearing from the workforce. What it uncovered wasn’t burnout or laziness. It was exhaustion, inequity, and a breaking point for working mothers who have been holding the modern economy together since 2020.

For years, companies celebrated the flexibility revolution. We said hybrid work was the great equalizer. Then came the snapback. The mandates. The childcare cliff. The silent message that mothers were once again expected to bend to the system or break under it.

And so, they’re leaving.

The Data: A Mass Exodus of Working Mothers

• KPMG: Mothers with children under five saw a nearly 3% drop in workforce participation this year.

• CBS News: Over 400,000 women left the U.S. labor force in the first half of 2025 — the largest decline in four decades.

• First Five Years Fund: Nearly half of unemployed mothers cite childcare as the main reason they can’t return to work.

• Global Institute for Women’s Leadership: Mothers face measurable pay and promotion penalties compared with non-mothers.

This isn’t just a labor statistic. It’s an economic alarm bell. Every mother who leaves represents lost productivity, innovation, and leadership potential.

What’s Really Driving Women Out of Work

1. Childcare Costs That Rival Rent

For many families, childcare costs more than housing. Without employer help or public subsidies, mothers are forced to choose between earning a paycheck and paying for care.

2. Return-to-Office Mandates That Ignore Reality

Hybrid work made participation possible. But when companies pulled workers back to office-first models, mothers — especially those with toddlers — lost their lifeline. The commute became a dealbreaker.

3. The Unspoken Motherhood Penalty

Decades of research prove it: women’s earnings drop 5–10% for every child. Biases about “commitment” or “availability” persist, especially in always-on work cultures.

4. The Maternal Wall

Mothers who request flexibility often find themselves sidelined into lower-impact roles. They’re still working hard — just not being seen.

5. A Broken Reentry System

In the U.S., leaving the workforce can mean losing career traction for good. Without paid leave, returnships, or structured reentry programs, many mothers never make it back.

The Real Cost of Losing Mothers

Every exit hurts. The Society for Human Resource Management estimates replacing a skilled employee costs over $140,000 when you factor in recruiting, ramp-up, and lost productivity.

Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of mothers leaving every year.

It’s not a “women’s issue.” It’s a business continuity crisis. And it’s hitting at the exact moment companies say they can’t find qualified talent.

What Employers Can Do Right Now

At Recruitics, we study the intersection of people, data, and purpose. What the numbers say is simple: the organizations that design work for caregivers win the war for talent.

Here’s how.

Redefine Flexibility

Flexibility is not a perk. It’s infrastructure. Offer output-based performance evaluation instead of hours logged. Normalize asynchronous work. Measure what matters.

Invest in Care

Partner with childcare providers. Offer backup care benefits. Provide stipends that offset real costs. It’s not charity — it’s retention strategy.

Audit for Bias

Measure promotion and attrition by parental status. Train managers to recognize maternal bias. Transparency drives trust.

Build Reentry Ramps

Design returnships and phased return programs. They give mothers a bridge back into full-time work and rebuild confidence.

Tell Their Stories

Representation shapes reputation. Spotlight mothers in leadership. Show what success looks like for women who are both ambitious and human.

The Business Case for Empathy

Women don’t leave because they stop caring about work. They leave because work stops caring about them.

Companies that embrace this moment — that treat flexibility, care, and empathy as strategic levers — will attract not only mothers but an entire generation rethinking what meaningful work looks like.

The “Great Exit” is a wake-up call. But it can also be an invitation.

The invitation is simple: build workplaces worth staying for.