🔒Child-free at work: Women who are forgoing motherhood say they battle hidden biases in the workplace

As more women delay or forgo having children, some say workplaces assume child-free employees have fewer obligations outside the office, leaving them with heavier workloads and fewer boundaries than their parenting peers. In 2024, 85% of women ages 20 to 24 did not have children, a five-percentage-point increase from a decade earlier, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The shift continues among older age groups: 63% of women ages 25 to 29 were childless in 2024, up from 50% in 2014, while 40% of women ages 30 to 34 have no children, compared with 29% a decade earlier. As more women build careers without children, some say their free time is often treated as more flexible than that of colleagues with families, creating an assumption they can take on additional work.

“There is an assumption that they are simply free, that they have no responsibilities, and therefore they don’t need to be asked,” said Valerie Zolezzi-Wyndham, CEO of Promoting Good, an equity-based leadership consulting firm in Worcester. A 2022 ResumeLab study found 74% of respondents believe child-free employees are expected to work more overtime, stay later when coworkers need to care for children, and are generally viewed as more available because they do not have kids. “I don't think it's anything that comes out of meanness. I think when you are a person who's seemingly bucking a tradition, folks [are] curious about it and maybe not understand it,” said Elizabeth Wambui, director of diversity, inclusion, and community impact at construction firm Fontaine Bros., which is headquartered in Springfield and Worcester. Both working mothers and child-free employees face real challenges, said Julie Bowditch, executive director of CASA Project Worcester County. Yet, because parenthood is more visible, workplace biases around child-free women are discussed far less often. Instead of assuming that child-free workers have the inherent ability to take on more assignments, attend after-work events, or go on work trips, employers should cast a wider net and simply ask who has the capacity for assignments, said Erin Jansky, chief human resources officer at Worcester-based Webster First Federal Credit Union. Instead of relying on certain employees to pick up extra work, companies should prioritize equitable workloads, Jansky said.

Divide in expectations

Early in her career, attorney AiVi Nguyen let her mentors know she wasn’t planning on having children, which she said helped propel her on the partner track, a privilege not afforded to many mothers.

“It’s not a department that women have traditionally survived in, because traditionally, most women have kids,” said Nguyen, who is now a partner in the Worcester office of Boston law firm Prince Lobel Tye. “That’s a very unpopular thing to say, but that's facts.” In 2023, women made up 28% of law firm partners in the U.S. and 24% of equity partners, according to the American Bar Association. “In real life, the ideal employee is one who is not tied down to anything, not tied down to any other responsibilities,” said Nguyen. As Bowditch advanced in her career and more of her peers had children, she could sense a gap forming. “I just could really feel that strong, strong, strong divide of that expectation showing up differently,” said Bowditch. “You could just tell that there were different expectations.” For Wambui, that meant being asked to take on additional projects, join extra committees, and represent her workplace more at events. “You run yourself down and then you feel guilty that you can't ask for time because there's too much to do,” she said. What employers often don’t understand is that just because a woman doesn’t have children doesn't mean her out-of-office time is available, and she may in fact have other caretaking responsibilities, said Jansky. Child-free employees may take care of elderly parents or disabled siblings, volunteer, or serve on boards, all obligations and activities demanding very real time commitments that should be valued by employers, Jansky said. “We kind of center parents over everything else,” said Jansky. “It’s not a competition … I'm just saying that there are other lifestyles and other time obligations that people should be a little more conscious of.”

Equitable flexibility

While being child-free proves beneficial in industries like the legal field, overworking child-free employees can negatively impact their longevity in a given company, said Zolezzi-Wyndham. “It can make a woman feel like she is seen … as somebody who will say ‘Yes’ to everything, even when she doesn't want to,” said Zolezzi-Wyndham. “What can happen is that she comes to resent that and actually disengages from the workforce.” To mitigate this issue and broader burnout among child-free employees, Jansky recommends employers adopt policies that remove parental status from workplace decisions. Companies should equally consider flexible time policy requests, known as flextime, Jansky said. She sees flextime often afforded to parents to accommodate pick-up and drop-off times and school vacations. While this is a beneficial and important use of flextime, child-free employees should have just as much access to the benefit. “If you offer it to some people, offer it to all people. Your policies should be broad and inclusive and not designed for one type of lifestyle,” said Jansky. “If you're going to design flexibility, stop making people justify it.” Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare, manufacturing, and higher education industries.