Working parents crave flexibility and they're quitting their jobs to get it, finds study

The study found that caring for family is one of the top five reasons why parents are choosing to quit their current jobs. (Representative image)

Working parents who have had to face harsh conditions during the Covid pandemic are more likely to quit their jobs for opportunities that provide them with flexibility than their non-parent counterparts, a recent study conducted in the US has found.

The reasons for quitting include exhaustion from the competing pressures of working from home and juggling childcare responsibilities, struggles with returning to the office but not finding consistent childcare, and reevaluating their overall work-life balance, the McKinsey study found. Parents are looking for more flexible work opportunities, from taking time off and starting their own businesses to turning to gig roles, it stated.

Stating the key factors contributing to why parents are choosing to quit their current jobs, the study found that caring for family is one of the top five reasons. "Similarly, workload and the ability to work remotely were among the top ten reasons that parents left their job," it stated.

The findings also suggested that employees with young children are more likely to prefer primarily remote-working models and flexible work locations, with only 8 per cent suggesting that they would like to see a fully on-site model in the future.

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"Parents also tend to belong to a crucial category: midtenure employees who play key managerial and individual-contributor roles. They are leaders or are on the leadership track. Any organization that loses this cohort can take a big hit to its institutional knowledge, including its managerial capabilities and mentorship pipeline," the company stated in its findings.

It added that managers who are parents, and in particular women, provide much of the social support in organisations. "Our Women in the Workplace 2021 report revealed that women managers have supported employee well-being throughout the pandemic at a higher rate than their male counterparts," McKinsey stated in its findings.

"Losing these women could erode an organisation’s social fabric, further intensifying the cycle of grief and burnout that companies have been grappling with since the pandemic began."

When it comes to their future plans, the survey showed that parents are significantly more likely to start a new business compared with their non-parent counterparts. "The data suggest that they will continue to be more likely to do so over the next several months, with 45 per cent of parents more likely than their peers without children to leave to start a new business," it stated.

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