The best working-mom environment in the U.S. can be found in Oregon, while the least attractive conditions are in Louisiana.
That's the conclusion of a detailed analysis by WalletHub, which evaluated the attractiveness of each state to working moms based on nine key metrics: day care quality, child care costs, pediatric services accessibility, public school quality, gender pay gap, ratio of male to female execs, parental leave policy, average woman's workday length and average commute time.
No Southern state cracked the top 10; Tennessee came the closest, tied for 15thwith New Jersey. Some might claim the District of Columbia as Southern, however, and it placed No. 2.
Recommended For You
The West Coast placed two: Oregon at No. 1 and California at No. 8. Ohio was the lone Rust Belt representative, placing No. 10 on the list.
Recent research has underscored that women still seek more work-life balance than males, and that while pay is important to women, it's not as critical to job satisfaction as it is with men.
The WalletHub rankings are worth noting precisely because they take all these factors into consideration.
Whether the list will start a stampede of working moms from Louisiana to Oregon is another matter. But here's the top 10 and bottom 10:
Top 10 best working-mom states
- Oregon
- District of Columbia
- Vermont
- Maine
- New York
- Delaware
- Rhode Island
- California
- Massachusetts
- Ohio
Bottom 10
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Wyoming
- Idaho
- South Carolina
- Nevada
- Kansas
- Colorado
- Missouri
- Pennsylvania
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
