The State With The Most Working Moms Is …
Which US state has the most working moms by percentage of the population?
You might be surprised as to what an ancestry.com analysis of census data revealed.
According to the results, the state with the most working mothers is South Dakota (with a working mom percentage of almost 80 percent). South Dakota also had the highest growth rate of working moms. “Why South Dakota? The state’s large percentage of women in the labor force largely reflects its thriving economy. Robust job-creation in South Dakota in recent decades has given it one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, at 3.7 percent, compared with 6.3 percent nationwide. Led by a strong energy and mining sector, along with a healthy tourist trade, the local economy even proved somewhat impervious to the Great Recession.”
Neighbor North Dakota was in second place (78.9 percent). Rounding out the top ten were Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Vermont, New Hampshire, Kansas, and Maine.
According to ancestry.com, “The woman’s suffrage movement, regional trends and wartime all contributed to growth rates after the turn of the century. With so many fathers going off to war in the first half of 1940, the nation called upon women to join the workforce like never before. This ushered in the highest growth rates for working women in the country since 1860, with double-digit growth continuing for the next four decades (1950-1990). The highest growth over the entire 150-year time frame occurred in 1980 (12.6%), boosting the percentage of working mothers to 52%.”
The data also suggests that the number of working moms has increased by 800 percent over the past 150 years.
Interestingly, over the 20th century, the Midwest was at a bottom of the list with the lowest percentage of working moms, but seven of the top ten finishers in the current findings have switched places with the southern states.
Separately, in a recent Gallup study, North Dakota was number one in terms of having the most contented citizens. Despite its frigid climate, North Dakota scored the best out of all 50 states on the basis of Gallup well-being characteristics such as “life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors, and access to basic necessities.” North Dakota is in the midst of an oil exploration boom and has the lowest unemployment rate in the country according to recent statistics.
A study release last year indicated that women have become the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of US households with children.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the working moms in America.
[image via Shutterstock]
