Why Women Are Leaving the Workforce: Confluence of Flexibility, Child Care, Burnout – Mary T. O’Sullivan

By Mary T. O’Sullivan, MSOL, contributing writer on business and leadership 

“More women are leaving their jobs, undermining their careers and earning potential and spelling trouble for the economy”. – USA Today

When Katharine Ransom-DiCerbo, a 35-year-old Black woman from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, recently resigned from her role at a progressive nonprofit, her departure was more than a career decision. She explained, “On the surface, my departure was due to burnout—the relentless emergencies, instability, and the toll of working in fear-driven environments for years. However, the underlying reason was more personal: I couldn’t envision myself raising a child in such an atmosphere”. Her story paints a vivid picture of the mounting pressures that have led hundreds of thousands of women to leave the workforce in 2025. As reported by CNN, Katherine’s experience highlights a reality faced by many women today—balancing career and caregiving has become a near-impossible task lacking adequate support and needed flexibility.

Her journey is characteristic of a startling growing trend this year: women exiting the labor market in unprecedented numbers for reasons that extend beyond simple job dissatisfaction. To grasp why so many women are leaving, three major factors fueling this crisis emerge—the collapse of workplace flexibility, the crushing costs and scarcity of childcare, and the inevitable burnout and systemic barriers women typically face in the workforce.

The Collapse of Workplace Flexibility

According to TIME Magazine, remote and hybrid work adopted during the pandemic gave many women—especially mothers—not just jobs, but lifelines. These arrangements provided flexibility that allowed caregiving at home and remaining employed to coexist, often for the first time. But in 2025, that era is ending swiftly, as federal agencies and corporate giants like Amazon mandate full-time office presence. TIME reports that the share of large companies enforcing full-time in-office requirements nearly doubled within one year, from 12% to 24% among Fortune 500 firms. The resulting inflexibility disproportionately impacts women who normally bear the brunt of family caregiving and home keeping responsibilities.

Julie Vogtman, senior director at the National Women’s Law Center, states, “Women are more likely than men to feel that they have to leave the workforce when their balancing act becomes unmanageable”. The numbers confirm this trend: college-educated mothers, who had increasingly joined the workforce during the pandemic, watched as that rate dropped from 70.3% in September 2024 to 67.7% in July 2025.

Miya Walker, a young mother and data analyst from Georgia, put a human face on these numbers. Challenged with a mandatory office return with a commute an hour from home, loss of her mother’s support due to health complications, and monthly daycare bills of $1,500, Walker felt her options collapse: “A lot of women are educated, capable, and eager, but sustaining work and motherhood under these conditions is unsustainable”, reports USA Today.

The Crushing Burden of Child Care Costs

Even before the pandemic CNN reported that childcare costs were a big enough hurdle for many families to rethink their options. That burden became more crushing after federal subsidies for childcare programs expired in late 2024, forcing day care center closures and fee hikes nationwide. In places like Washington, D.C., parents can pay upwards of $28,000 annually, while even the most affordable states approach $7,000 per year. A Philadelphia mother, Kristine Campbell-Maas, faced heartbreak as her infant remained on waitlists at nine daycare facilities. “Financially, paying $1,400 a month for three days a week was not feasible,” she shared. Another mother, Amber Lord, echoed the impossible escalating costs of childcare: “So many women told me it makes more sense financially to stay home and live strapped to a husband’s paycheck”. Her daycare bill for four days a week was $25,000.

Here is the irony of this childcare crisis. According to Axios, the consequences of the high cost of childcare are especially impactful for mothers: their report says that college-educated mothers’ labor force participation fell from nearly 80% in 2023 to 77% in 2025, while fathers increased their presence in the workforce over the same period.

In addition to these logistical and economic pressures lies the emotional toll of work burnout, compounded by workplace cultures that fail to support caregiving women, as described in a CNN Business survey. Katharine Ransom-DiCerbo’s story embodies this deeper crisis: “Burnout from relentless emergencies and instability pushed me away. It wasn’t just professional exhaustion, but a loss of faith in the sustainability of juggling work and life”. Bernice Chao, a corporate executive and mother, similarly described a slow build-up of impossible expectations that proved many workplaces were not designed to support or accommodate women like them.

Compounding the problem, women caring for both children and aging parents—the so-called sandwich generation—often find themselves forced out. Congressional data show that half of caregiving mothers have left jobs due to these unmanageable demands. Katie Walley-Wiegert, a marketing professional and caregiver, summed it up: “Managing a full-time job, toddler, and terminally ill father was too much. I chose to be present for family instead”. A May report from Motherly and the University of Phoenix Career Institute found that half of surveyed mothers who matched this description said they’d left a job due to their caregiving responsibilities.

And of course, women still face systemic workplace discrimination which exacerbates the stress and strain of working. Veteran professional Amy Andrade cites pervasive age bias and unconscious or conscious prejudice as compelling forces pushing women from corporate careers. The persistent motherhood penalty worsens wage gaps, with breaks from the workforce costing nearly 40% of lifetime earnings. According to a KPMG’s 2025 report, companies enforcing inflexible attendance policies face significant female turnover, undermining diversity and competitiveness and hindering the advancement of women.

Returning again to Katharine Ransom-DiCerbo’s candid reflection on women’s challenging predicament brings the issue home: “Perhaps we have been placed in situations where the demands of work become so overwhelming that we are unable to care for ourselves, our families, or expand our families”. Her experience embodies the broader crisis igniting the “great exit” of women from the workforce—not voluntary withdrawals but responses to systemic failures.

This exodus of women from the workforce endangers decades of progress in gender equity and family stability. The urgent need is clear: affordable and accessible childcare, widespread return to more flexible work arrangements, expanded paid family leave, and proactive action against workplace bias (that means reinstatement of certain DEI policies and training).

What began as an individual struggle has crystallized into a systemic crisis, undermining decades of gender equity progress and threatening the economic health of families and society. The urgent need now is to create workplaces that respect caregiving demands through flexibility, provide accessible childcare support, and implement inclusive policies that eliminate discrimination and protect working parents, even if when it means reinstating corporate DEI policies and training.

The journey of these women, alongside those of countless other women across the nation, is a powerful call to action: without these essential changes, more women will be forced out, and the gains toward equality and family well-being will unravel. Through these stories, we see both the challenge and dare we say hope—because recognizing and stating the problem out loud is the first step toward transforming workplaces back to truly support women as vital contributors and caregivers alike. It almost sounds like a scene from Back to the Future. Where is “Doc” Brown’s DeLorean when we need it most?

“More than 450,000 women have dropped out of the US labor market since January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Outside of the pandemic, it’s one of the steepest declines on record.” – CNN Business

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Mary T. O’Sullivan, Master of Science, Organizational Leadership, International Coaching Federation Professional Certified Coach, Society of Human Resource Management, “Senior Certified Professional. Graduate Certificate in Executive and Professional Career Coaching, University of Texas at Dallas.

Member, Beta Gamma Sigma, the International Honor Society.

Advanced Studies in Education from Montclair University, SUNY Oswego and Syracuse University.

Mary is also a certified Six Sigma Specialist, Contract Specialist, IPT Leader and holds a Certificate in Essentials of Human Resource