Remote options brought moms back to work. Return-to-office could push them out again.

For most of her career, Felicia Krick worked from the office every day, sometimes logging 80 hours a week as a public accountant.

Then the pandemic hit, the world shut down, and she caught a glimpse of a different life.

"Remote work, for me, really became a saving grace where I could continue to go after my career goals, but I could also be a little bit more present with my family," the 36-year-old mother of four said. "And so just the rumblings of, 'Hey, we're going back to the office, and it's going to be on average three days a week,' that was very anxiety-provoking because I'd really gotten used to this kind of new normal."

After leaving jobs in droves at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, women in their prime working years, especially those with young children, have led the post-pandemic labor market recovery. But as companies begin calling workers back to the office — and child care options dwindle — experts expect many women will exit the workforce again.

"What we know is that lack of support, and in particular lack of support for caregivers, does push people out of the workforce," said Gaylynn Burroughs, director of workplace equality at the National Women's Law Center.

Women shouldered the pandemic's economic toll, working jobs companies were more likely to eliminate and often assuming caretaking responsibilities. More than 2 million women left the U.S. workforce in 2020, setting their participation back a generation.

At the same time, the pandemic normalized flexibility in many workplaces, and U.S. women have returned to jobs in record numbers: In 2023, the labor force participation rate of prime-age women — between ages 25 and 54 — reached an all-time high of more than 77%.

For November 2023, the most recently available data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prime-age women's labor force participation was nearly 87% in Minnesota, according to analysis from Lauren Bauer, an economic studies fellow and associate director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings.

"The pandemic made remote work so much more possible, that it really showed the potential and the promise for more family-oriented policies that allow people to balance caregiving and work," said Kristine West, an associate economics professor at St. Catherine University.

Even as employers bring workers back to the office, many are still allowing for remote work.

Target Corp. is asking employees to work from its downtown Minneapolis headquarters at least one week a quarter. Ryan Cos. wants its employees in the office or at a construction job site three days a week, but there's flexibility in which days and how many, said Keisha Duck, chief human resources officer. Starkey Hearing Technologies is requiring four days a week at its Eden Prairie campus, plus one flexible day when employees can work from home.

Jessica Perez, Starkey's chief people officer and executive vice president of culture, said she works with her team members if they need to shift their schedule to, for example, pick up their kids during the work day. The company has also tried to make in-office days more attractive, including undergoing a remodel that added and upgraded mothers' rooms.

"We need to do what's right for the organization, but we need to do what's right for each other," Perez said. "We don't want to make anybody come to the office. ... We want you to want to be here."

Alissa Henriksen, co-president of recruiting firm Grey Search + Strategy, said her clients with the most effective return-to-office policies are letting employees choose which days they want to work in-person. Employers mandating five days a week in the office "are not getting the same candidate pool that they used to, not even close," she said.

But as the labor market tightens and companies don't have to offer as many perks to attract workers, Henriksen said she expects more women to leave the workforce "unless they're the true breadwinner of the family."

"There are sacrifices that people will ultimately have to make if they have five kids, and they can't afford daycare," she said. "They don't have any other option."

The end of a pandemic-era federal grant program this fall threatened to shutter tens of thousands of child care providers and leave millions of children across the U.S. without care. Minnesota invested in its own program to replace the lost federal dollars, but child care can still be hard to find and cost-prohibitive. For a family with an infant and a toddler, the average child care center rate is $620 a week, according to Child Care Aware of Minnesota.

The decline in flexibility that comes with return-to-office policies is likely to affect women as they decidewhether to continue working, West said.

"It's not going to radically impact women who were always going to be in the workforce or women who were never going to be in the workforce," she said. "[It's] going to influence women who are on the margin of being in the workforce."

Still, remote work isn't a cure-all.

"Telework may have made it possible for some women to balance caregiving responsibilities and work, but in and of itself, it's not a solution, obviously, to pay disparities, and it's not a viable solution for the lack of child care," Burroughs said.

More women graduating from college and then continuing to work after having children has boosted women's workforce participation in the past two decades, according to an analysis from the Penn Wharton Budget Model. Among mothers of young children, those who are college-educated or married are more likely than the average worker to report teleworking at least once a week, according to research from Brookings.

Meanwhile, women remain more likely than men to shoulder child care and housework responsibilities and also provide the lion's share of unpaid elder care.

For nearly a year after her husband died, Shannon Swanson was able to make things work: The mother of three did her paralegal job remotely, and her mom helped with child care.

But then Swanson's mother got sick, and her workplace called her back to the office five days a week. Left without backup and needing to care for her mother and children, the 34-year-old quit her job and now supports her family on Social Security survivors benefits of about $4,300 a month. Behind on rent, she worries about being evicted, and though she's looking for work, she hasn't been able to find a remote job.

"I don't have a second parent to help me anymore, and so finding work right now that would be suitable for our circumstances is very hard," Swanson said.

Even for women whose jobs provide flexibility, there are tradeoffs.

Working mothers in the U.S., including part-time and part-year workers, make 62 cents for every dollar working fathers make; in Minnesota, they make 63 cents. The gaps are wider for women of color: Black working mothers in Minnesota make 38 cents on the dollar compared to white working fathers; Latina mothers make 34 cents; and Native American mothers make 33 cents.

Mothers are also less likely than childless women and men to be recommended for promotions.

Danielle, 28, who asked that her last name not be used out of concern about retaliation at work, recently returned to her marketing job after maternity leave with her second child. A required three days a week in the office means limited time with her family, and when she has to leave the office early to pick up her kids or isn't able to log on again in the evening, she worries about the impact on her career.

"I've basically had to make my peace with the fact that I can't do it all, and for right now, I've chosen to prioritize my family, come what may, and hope that I can do well enough in my career to put food on the table," she said.

Krick said she has considered transitioning from accounting to teaching, which would align her schedule with her children's. Her workplace doesn't require a set number of in-person days, but there are benefits to being in the office at least three days a week, including career opportunities, she said.

And though remote work has become more normalized post-pandemic, there can still be stigma, Krick said.

"There's just this negative connotation with remote work at this point, which, that, added to the mental load that women already carry, I think is exhausting," she said. "Constantly having to feel like you're defending, like, 'No, I am working as hard as people in the office.'

"I think that's just a heavy load to bear."