Arizona ranks as one of the worst states for working moms

Arizona ranks among the worst states in the country for working moms, according to a study done by WalletHub.

The personal finance platform ranked the Grand Canyon State 46th out of 50 states for working moms, based off child care access and cost, professional opportunities and work-life balance.

A variety of research went into each category when building out the rankings.

Child care took into account the quality of day care, cost of child care, school-system quality, pediatricians per capita, the share of nationally accredited child care centers and the number of childcare workers per total number of children.

The professional opportunities in each state were measured based on eight different variables, including gender pay gap, the ratio of female executives to male executives and the median women’s salary.

Work-life balance was measured by looking at a parental-leave policy score, the average length of a woman’s work week and women’s average commute time to work.

Arizona ranked 49th in child care, 36th in professional opportunity and 29th in work-life balance.

Nearly half of the U.S. workforce is made up of women and around 74% of moms with children under the age of 18 were employed in 2025, according to WalletHub.

Meanwhile, WalletHub reports that on average, women are only earning about 82% of what men make per hour and only “9.4% of chief executives at S&P 500 companies are women.”

“The U.S. still has a lot of work to do when it comes to improving conditions for working moms, given the wage gap and the lack of representation women have in certain leadership positions,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said. “However, some states are significantly better than others.

“The best states for working moms provide equitable pay for women and a strong potential for career advancement, along with robust parental leave policies and high-quality child care, health care and schools.”

The data collected by the personal finance platform to rank the U.S.’s best and worst states for working moms was based on 17 key metrics (six for child care, eight for professional opportunity and three for work-life balance).

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