The big outing: requests to return to the office and the arrows are pushing young mothers out of the workforce, according to KPMG Research

Participation in the active population in mothers with children under the age of five has dropped almost three percentage points between January and June 2025, coinciding with almost double full -time office mandates among fortune companies 500. This aligns with the conclusion of KPMG according to which mothers – in particular mothers university of very young children – are expelled by inflexible schedules of constrained children.

As KPMG says, simply: “Since the end of 2023, women with young children have left the working population.”

What the report says

• The shortages of childcare labor collided with high demand, which maintains high prices and rare options; Consequently, mothers go out or reduce more hours than fathers, with the most steep drops among educated mothers of very young children’s colleges since 2023.
• The employment of childcare was filled with federal stabilization funds ended in 2023, leaving the sector to around 100,000 workers below what would be supported, which contributes to higher prices and to waiting lists that destabilize work for parents.
  • KPMG says that the so-called “childcare cliff” has become “plus a tray. But this tray shows a sector in crisis ”.
• Return to the Office amplify these pressures: when the care provisions cannot be flexed to add journey time or goal days, a parent – will dispose of the mother – reduces the hours or leaves the workforce entirely, eroding household income and the retention of experienced talent companies.

Key numbers

• Participation in the active population of mothers educated by colleges with very young children fell to around 77% in August 2025, by almost 80% in 2023, while fathers in comparable groups increased, expanding gender gaps in attachment to work among parents of young children.
• The prices of the childcare services have increased to about the double of the pace of overall inflation, reflecting supply constraints and higher operating costs that providers transmit to families, which in turn increases the exit pressure for mothers.
  • “The childcare crisis is not new,” writes KPMG, “but that has increased in intensity. Once the parents have returned to work and have requested more child care services, prices have started to increase again. ”
• A striking conclusion: women with a baccalaureate or more and young children represent the highest drop in labor market participation since 2023.

Why it matters

• Impact of households: reducing participation in maternal labor reduces the benefits and progress of the career, with long-term effects on the accumulation of wealth and gaps on gender wages, while forcing difficult compromises in family budgeting under the rise in care costs.
• Macro impact: employers lose productive and experienced workers; Hiring and training costs are increasing; And overall growth slows down while supply of labor withdraws in essential segments for productivity and leadership pipelines.
• Risk of policy: The trends in the report take place in parallel with a lower job market and policy changes that disproportionately affect heavy sectors, which can worsen exit dynamics if access to child care and affordability cannot improve.

Wider context

• Return to the office: Fortune The reports according to which the full -time employment requirements among fortune companies 500 reached approximately 24% in the 2T25, going from 13% to the end of 2024, eroding flexibility which had maintained many mothers attached to work during and after the pandemic; As the mandates tightened, the participation of mothers of young children increased from around 69.7% to 66.9% by mid-2010, echoing the documented drops of KPMG in educated mothers of very young children in 2025.
• The Push-Pull mechanism: loss of flexibility collided with the rise in daycare services and limited availability, forcing mothers to cuts or outings.

What to monitor the next

• Immigration and the supply of labor: approximately one in five childcare workers being national immigrants, stricter immigration policies could further limit staff, exacerbate shortages and price pressures in high states.
• Employers’ responses: extended flexibility, emergency care and site options can reduce parental disturbances; In the absence of such supports, stricter automatic mandates tend to trigger disproportionate maternal outings or hours of hours.
• Political experimentation: State actions (financing extensions, tax credits, salary support) and federal choices on childcare services, workforce and immigration will shape if the current plateau moves to recovery or deepens in a difference in prolonged capacity.

For this story, Fortune Used a generative AI to help an initial project. An editor checked the accuracy of the information before the publication.