California ranks 38 among 50 for working moms

Women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, and nearly 66% were working moms with children under age 18 in 2020. That’s naturally been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, though. Mothers were initially disproportionately impacted by job losses compared to fathers, and while they have also regained jobs at faster rates, unemployment has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to WalletHub

Even during non-pandemic times, working moms still face an uphill battle in the workplace, as their average hourly wage is only 85% of what men make, and only 6% of S&P 500 companies’ chief executives are women. Such obvious inequality brings up not just financial questions but also deeply ingrained social issues. For instance, should women have to choose between career and family?

The real question, however, is what we’re doing about these fundamental problems. Progress appears to be taking shape at different rates across the nation. Not only do parental leave policies and other legal support systems vary by state, but the quality of infrastructure — from cost-effective day care to public schools — is far from uniform as well.

With Mother’s Day around the corner and mothers regaining jobs lost due to COVID-19 at a faster rate than fathers, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2021’s Best & Worst States for Working Moms.

In order to help ease the burden on mothers in the workforce, WalletHub compared the attractiveness of each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia for a working mother based on 17 key metrics. The data set ranges from the median women’s salary to the female unemployment rate to day-care quality.

Life as a Working Mom in California (1=Best; 25=Avg.):

  • 49th – Day-Care Quality
  • 47th – Child-Care Costs (Adjusted for Median Women’s Salary)
  • 24th – Pediatricians per Capita
  • 3rd – Gender Pay Gap (Women’s Earnings as % of Men’s)
  • 30th – Ratio of Female Executives to Male Executives
  • 48th – Median Women’s Salary (Adjusted for Cost of Living)
  • 49th – Female Unemployment Rate
  • 6th – Parental-Leave Policy Score
  • 14th – Avg. Length of Woman’s Work Week (in Hours)
  • 19th – % of Single-Mom Families in Poverty

For the full report, click here.

Image Sources

  • Workings moms: Shutterstock