Working parents are struggling. Hundreds of thousands of mothers are being driven out of the labor force, families are being confronted with soaring child care costs, and return to office is forcing everyone to change their care strategies. That means they’re looking to employers for help —and they’re less and less shy about voicing their needs.
About 78% of working parents say they’re more comfortable talking with their employer about family responsibilities than they used to be, according to a new Modern Family Index report from Bright Horizons, an education and child care provider. And there has been considerable progress over the last decade—only 24% of parents surveyed in 2024 say they would be nervous to tell their bosses they have to miss a work event to make a family commitment, compared to 39% in 2014. The proportion of employees with kids who are afraid to ask for reduced hours dropped from 43% in 2014, to 22% this year, and those fearful of asking to work remotely also fell from 43% to 21%.
“There has been a fundamental shift in employees’ expectations of their employers. Full stop,” Stephen Kramer, CEO of Bright Horizons, tells Fortune. “Employees 10 years ago felt like they were simply workers to their employers. Today, they really believe that employers should be supporting their careers, but at the same time support their families in order for them to be most successful.”
Working parents’ increased willingness to advocate for their own should send a strong signal to employers about important child care benefits are. And around 70% of working parents say that working for a company with benefits that foster a healthy work-life balance are non-negotiable, according to the report.
“This is really a wake up call to all employers that they need to move both quickly and substantively to offer these kinds of benefits,” Kramer says. “The pandemic afforded working parents some flexibility, that in many ways, has started to dissipate or has fully dissipated in this return to a more traditional [work] environment. Employers leaned in during the pandemic, and are now leaning back out, but are not placing supports to compensate for that change.”
That support could start with listening to what kind of perks parents actually want. About 46% of working parents say they want help paying for child care, 40% want unlimited remote work, and 45% want more flexibility, according to the report. But only 29% of workers with children have employer help paying for child care, and 24% get assistance via on-site child care.
“Employees have found their voice. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle,” Kramer says. “Employers that lean into support in terms of child care and things that really help them integrate their work and their life, those are going to attract and retain the best talent. And the ones that don’t are absolutely going to be out in the cold.”
