New Research Shows Working Moms Are Doing Two Jobs At Once

For a lot of parents, especially moms, the workday and the parenting day are happening at the same time. It is less about people slacking off at work and more about how hard it has become to keep paid work, childcare, school logistics and household responsibilities in separate lanes.

A new Pew Research Center report found that the line between work and family life is blurry for most working parents in the U.S. Seven in 10 say they handle parenting-related tasks while they’re working, while 59 percent say they take care of work-related tasks when they’re with their kids. More than half, 54 percent, say balancing work and family responsibilities is difficult.

The report is based primarily on a March 2026 survey of 2,242 working parents. Its clearest takeaway is one many families will recognize right away: even when parents are technically at work, they are often still keeping track of pickups, sick kids, school forms, activities and childcare logistics in the background.

The pressure lands especially hard on moms. Pew found that 62 percent of full-time working moms say balancing work and family responsibilities is difficult, compared with 47 percent of dads.

What the report found

Among the biggest findings:

• 70 percent of working parents say they do parenting tasks while they’re working.
• 59 percent say they do work tasks while they’re with their children.
• 52 percent of full-time working parents say their job makes it harder to be a good parent.
• 45 percent say being a parent makes it harder to advance at work.

Pew also found that mothers are far more likely to say the overlap happens often. About 81 percent of full-time working moms say they take care of parenting tasks while at work at least sometimes. More strikingly, 38 percent say they do this extremely or very often, about double the share of dads who say the same.

The emotional side of that juggling act shows up, too. Six in 10 full-time working parents say they spend too little time with their children, and nearly half say work responsibilities at least sometimes cause them to miss their kids’ activities, like school concerts or sports. Moms were more likely than dads to say missing those moments because of work felt deeply upsetting.

Moms are still carrying more at home

The report also points to the same imbalance many couples argue about in quieter, more exhausting ways. In different-sex couples where both parents work full time, 52 percent say the mom takes on more parenting tasks. Just 10 percent say the dad does more.

That does not suggest moms are less committed to their jobs. If anything, the data points to how often mothers are expected to stay fully engaged at work while also carrying more of the day-to-day parenting load at home. Earlier research highlighted by Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research found that mothers report the same level of work effort as fathers and childless workers, and may be even more deeply absorbed in their work than fathers.

Pew also found that workplace flexibility is far from guaranteed. Among full-time working parents who aren’t self-employed, only 24 percent say they have a lot of flexibility to work from home when needed. For lower-income parents, access to paid time off, paid leave and employer health insurance is even shakier.

Taken together, the findings paint a picture of parents trying to meet work expectations while holding together the invisible logistics of family life. For many moms, the issue is not whether they are dedicated employees. It is that the structure around work and caregiving still asks them to absorb more of both.

This article was crafted with the assistance of an AI language model. The final content was reviewed and edited by a human and reflects the editorial judgment and expertise of Today's Parent.