For U.S. mothers, 2025 is emerging as a workplace inflection point where stricter return‑to‑office mandates and rising childcare costs together combined to spark an exodus of working mothers, according to a new KPMG report titled “The Great Exit.”
Labor force participation among mothers with children under five dropped nearly three percentage points between January and June 2025, coinciding with a near doubling of full‑time office mandates among Fortune 500 companies. This aligns with KPMG’s finding that mothers—especially college‑educated mothers of very young children—are being pushed out by inflexible schedules atop a constrained childcare market.
