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The Mindset of Parents in the Market
August 17, 2022 4:00:00 PM

The challenges that working parents face today are significant, unique, and persistent when it comes to workplace priorities. Among married-couple families with children, 95.3 percent had at least one employed parent in 2020, and 59.8 percent had both parents employed.

If you’re a parent, managing your time and workload is more difficult than ever in the post-pandemic world. Being an employer means understanding the needs of working parents and finding ways to support them.

Our modern world has made it very difficult for working parents to have the flexibility they need to be able to care for their kids and have the time to be with them. The labor force participation rate for all women with children under 18 was 71.2 percent in 2020, down from 72.3 percent in the prior year. The participation rate for fathers with children under age 18, at 92.3 percent in 2020, also declined from the previous year (93.3 percent). In 2020, the unemployment rate for mothers increased by 4.0 percentage points from the prior year to 7.5 percent, and the rate for fathers increased by 3.4 percentage points to 5.6 percent.

Workplace flexibility policies help employees by providing options for taking time off or reducing their workload; these policies are designed to fit a variety of employee needs and can include paid or unpaid leave as well as part-time schedules. Employers can also offer childcare assistance, flexible scheduling options, and transportation benefits.

Employers need to make adjustments to attract parents back into the workforce. Thankfully, MAU’s most recent survey, the Flexible Work Survey, can help shine some light on exactly what working parents prioritize and where their employers can support their unique needs.

Check out the infographic below for a quick breakdown of the survey’s findings!