The District of Columbia has been ranked number six in the country for working moms in a study conducted by the personal finance platform WalletHub.
The report, which came out ahead of Mother’s Day, evaluated the 50 states and Washington DC in terms of child care, professional opportunities, and work-life balance, to determine the best and worst states for working mothers.
With a total score of 57.35, DC was ranked 11th in child care, and seventh in both professional opportunities, and work-life balance.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Wisconsin landed the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth spots on the list, respectively. Maryland was number 19 and Virginia was 20.
The worst states for working moms as per the WalletHub list are Idaho (47th), South Carolina (48th), Alabama (49th), Mississippi (50th), and Louisiana (51st).
Among the 17 metrics used in the research are day-care quality, child-care costs, pediatricians per capita, school-system quality, number of childcare workers per total number of children, gender pay gap, median women’s salary, and parental-leave policy score.
The research is based on data from the US 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, and more.
According to the website, women constitute around 50 percent of the US workforce and approximately 68 percent of moms with children under age 18 were working in 2021.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the ratio of women in the workforce declined, dropping around 1.3 percent between Q3 2019 and Q3 2021 (compared to 1.1 percent for men).