Ten Economic Facts on How Mothers Spend Their Time

The pressures that mothers of young children have faced over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic have been well documented. While inequities persist in many aspects of women’s lives, some of the stickier problems for women stem from the difficult choices they face in reconciling competing demands on their time. This report reviews trends in women’s labor force participation and document how mothers of children under age 13 have changed how they spend their time. In this set of economic facts, we detail some of the ways in which work, time, and caregiving have changed for mothers with young children from before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic through 2020 until early 2021. This report relies on Federal data and the Survey of Mothers with Young Children.