2019’s Best & Worst States for Working Moms
2:53 AMPosted by: John S Kiernan
Women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, and more than 70 percent of moms with young children are working. Yet women earned only 85 percent of what men made in 2018 and have far less upward mobility, as evidenced by the fact that only 4.8 percent of S&P 500 companies’ chief executives are female.
Such obvious inequality sparks debates about gender roles in a shifting socioeconomic environment. Workplace 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 this fundamental problem. 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 also far from uniform as well.
So, in order to help ease the burden on an underappreciated segment of the population, WalletHub compared state dynamics across 16 key metrics to identify the Best & Worst States for Working Moms. A complete breakdown of our findings, as well as expert commentary and a detailed methodology, can be found below.
- Main Findings
- Red States vs. Blue States
- Ask the Experts: Improving Conditions for Working Moms
- Methodology
Embed on your website<iframe src="//d2e70e9yced57e.cloudfront.net/wallethub/embed/3565/geochart-moms-2019.html" width="556" height="347" frameBorder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <div style="width:556px;font-size:12px;color:#888;">Source: <a href="http://bit.ly/302XZrd>
Best and Worst States for Working Moms
Overall Rank (1=Best) |
State |
Total Score |
‘Child Care’ Rank |
‘Professional Opportunities’ Rank |
‘Work-Life Balance’ Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Massachusetts | 66.87 | 1 | 30 | 1 |
2 | Rhode Island | 61.96 | 11 | 8 | 2 |
3 | Connecticut | 61.06 | 3 | 10 | 5 |
4 | Vermont | 60.92 | 2 | 2 | 9 |
5 | District of Columbia | 58.92 | 8 | 6 | 6 |
6 | New Jersey | 56.02 | 7 | 25 | 8 |
7 | Minnesota | 55.36 | 6 | 3 | 16 |
8 | Wisconsin | 54.02 | 13 | 11 | 10 |
9 | New Hampshire | 53.54 | 4 | 4 | 34 |
10 | Washington | 52.99 | 21 | 45 | 3 |
11 | Maine | 51.67 | 23 | 14 | 12 |
12 | North Dakota | 50.88 | 5 | 24 | 23 |
13 | Iowa | 49.86 | 17 | 12 | 17 |
14 | Delaware | 48.81 | 10 | 5 | 41 |
15 | Kansas | 48.68 | 18 | 17 | 19 |
16 | Colorado | 48.24 | 16 | 9 | 27 |
17 | Nebraska | 48.08 | 30 | 1 | 26 |
18 | Oregon | 47.78 | 40 | 32 | 4 |
19 | Montana | 47.68 | 28 | 28 | 13 |
20 | New York | 47.50 | 20 | 39 | 14 |
21 | Ohio | 46.24 | 27 | 19 | 20 |
22 | Indiana | 46.00 | 14 | 31 | 28 |
23 | South Dakota | 45.71 | 26 | 16 | 24 |
24 | Maryland | 45.57 | 15 | 7 | 50 |
25 | Virginia | 45.56 | 9 | 27 | 48 |
26 | Tennessee | 44.02 | 12 | 29 | 46 |
27 | Wyoming | 43.84 | 19 | 42 | 21 |
28 | North Carolina | 43.07 | 33 | 15 | 37 |
29 | Michigan | 43.05 | 36 | 21 | 31 |
30 | Florida | 42.88 | 24 | 22 | 44 |
31 | Missouri | 42.76 | 31 | 18 | 38 |
32 | Illinois | 42.53 | 22 | 44 | 25 |
33 | Hawaii | 41.85 | 34 | 41 | 18 |
34 | Kentucky | 41.79 | 25 | 37 | 36 |
35 | New Mexico | 41.65 | 41 | 13 | 30 |
36 | Alaska | 40.91 | 44 | 20 | 22 |
37 | Pennsylvania | 40.77 | 35 | 34 | 35 |
38 | Utah | 40.28 | 37 | 51 | 11 |
39 | Oklahoma | 39.93 | 29 | 40 | 39 |
40 | California | 39.50 | 49 | 47 | 7 |
41 | Arkansas | 38.93 | 47 | 23 | 29 |
42 | Arizona | 38.57 | 39 | 38 | 33 |
43 | Texas | 38.57 | 32 | 35 | 49 |
44 | West Virginia | 37.67 | 43 | 36 | 32 |
45 | Georgia | 36.55 | 38 | 33 | 51 |
46 | Nevada | 34.15 | 48 | 26 | 45 |
47 | Mississippi | 33.86 | 42 | 43 | 47 |
48 | Idaho | 33.11 | 51 | 46 | 15 |
49 | South Carolina | 32.51 | 46 | 49 | 42 |
50 | Alabama | 31.65 | 45 | 50 | 43 |
51 | Louisiana | 29.00 | 50 | 48 | 40 |
For added insight into how to address workplace gender inequality, especially for working mothers, we turned to a panel of experts. They range from university professors who research gender roles and economics to the authors of some of the most popular career and women’s blogs. Click on the experts’ profiles to read their bios and responses to the following key questions:
- What can companies do to help working parents balance home and work life?
- What careers are most difficult to balance work and family? What are the easiest?
- What can state and local governments do to support working mothers?
- How likely do you believe the new congress is to enact a program for federal paid family leave during this session?
- In evaluating the best states for working moms, what are the top five indicators?
- Paul J. Antonellis, Jr. MA, Ed.D. – Faculty - Human Resource Management Program - Organization Studies and Analytics Dept.The Girard School of Business, Merrimack College
- Paul Harrington Ph.D. – Director- Center of Labor Markets and Policy; Professor, Drexel University School of Education
- Jeremy Reynolds Ph.D. – Professor of Sociology, Purdue University
- Marick Masters Ph.D. – Professor of Management, Director – Douglas A. Fraser Center Labor@Wayne, Wayne State University Mike Ilitch School of Business
- Kerri J. Wade MSW, LGSW – Extension Agent, Associate Professor, Assistant Director - Families and Community Development Unit, West Virginia University Extension Service
- Anne E. Winkler Ph.D., Chair, Department of Economics, Professor of Economics & Public Policy Administration, University of Missouri-St. Louis
In order to determine the best and worst states for working moms, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across three key dimensions: 1) Child Care, 2) Professional Opportunities and 3) Work-Life Balance.
We evaluated those dimensions using 16 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions for working moms.
We then determined each state and the District’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.
Child Care – Total Points: 40- Day-Care Quality: Double Weight (~10.00 Points)
- Child-Care Costs: Full Weight (~5.00 Points)Note: This metric was adjusted for the median women’s salary.
- Pediatricians per Capita: Full Weight (~5.00 Points)
- School-System Quality: Double Weight (~10.00 Points)Note: This metric is based on WalletHub’s States with the Best & Worst School Systems ranking.
- Share of Nationally Accredited Child Care Centers: Full Weight (~5.00 Points)
- Number of Childcare Workers per Total Number of Children: Full Weight (~5.00 Points)Note: Childcare workers attend to the basic needs of children, such as dressing, bathing, feeding, and overseeing play. They may help younger children prepare for kindergarten or assist older children with homework.
- Gender Pay Gap: Double Weight (~7.50 Points)Note: This metric measures women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s.
- Ratio of Female Executives to Male Executives: Full Weight (~3.75 Points)
- Median Women’s Salary: Full Weight (~3.75 Points)Note: This metric was adjusted for the cost of living.
- Share of Working Women Living with Economic Security: Full Weight (~3.75 Points)Note: This metric is based on the Basic Economic Security Tables (BEST) Index, which measures how much income working adults of different family types need to be economically secure. Economic security means having “enough income to meet…basic monthly expenses—such as housing, food, transportation and child care expenses—and save for emergencies and retirement.”
- Share of Families in Poverty: Full Weight (~3.75 Points)Note: “Families” include single mothers with children aged 0 to 17.
- Female Unemployment Rate: Full Weight (~3.75 Points)
- Gender-Representation Gap in Different Economic Sectors: Full Weight (~3.75 Points)Note: This metric measures the absolute difference between the share of female employees and male employees.
- Parental-Leave Policy Score: Double Weight (~15.00 Points)Note: This metric is based on the report card from Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Laws That Help Expecting and New Parents.
- Average Length of a Woman’s Work Week (in Hours): Full Weight (~7.50 Points)
- Women’s Average Commute Time (in Minutes): Full Weight (~7.50 Points)
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Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Child Care Aware® of America, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Council for Community and Economic Research, Institute for Women's Policy Research, National Partnership for Women & Families and WalletHub research.
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