Why Do Mothers Leave Work After Maternity Leave?

In a UK survey of 848 women, 85% had left full-time work within 3 years of having their first child (Careers After Babies, 2023). The founder of the project behind it reports that 98% of respondents had said they wanted to return to work after becoming mothers (Heagren, 2023).

Those 2 numbers sit side by side. Nearly all of the mothers in that survey wanted to come back. Most were no longer working full-time 3 years after their first child arrived.

UK law gives mothers up to 52 weeks of leave and up to 39 weeks of pay (GOV.UK, 2026). The statutory scheme is built around the time away. What the job looks like once she is back is largely decided by each employer and each manager. This post sets out what the evidence says about why mothers leave, how often leaving is forced, and what employers can change.

Why do mothers leave work after maternity leave?

There is no single cause. Leave keeps a mother's job open while she is away. Whether that job fits the life she returns to depends on her hours, her commute, childcare costs, her prospects and how she is treated. Each mother weighs those factors differently, which is why one policy rarely fits everyone.

The Careers After Babies project found that 85% of women left the full-time workforce within 3 years of their first child. A further 19% left work completely (Careers After Babies, 2023). The number of female managers dropped by 32% after having children, and the number of admin roles rose by 44% (Careers After Babies, 2023). The project's page does not publish definitions for those categories. The survey reached 848 women, so the figures describe the women who took part. A fall in managers alongside a rise in admin roles is consistent with mothers moving into work below their previous level.

What does UK maternity leave cover?

Statutory Maternity Leave is 52 weeks, with 2 weeks compulsory after the birth (4 weeks for factory work). Statutory Maternity Pay lasts up to 39 weeks. It pays 90% of average weekly earnings for the first 6 weeks. For the next 33 weeks it pays £194.32 or 90% of earnings, whichever is lower (GOV.UK, 2026).

That scheme protects income and a place at work during the leave. The Institute for Fiscal Studies shows what follows it. In UK data, women's employment falls to about 20% below its pre-birth level in the first years of parenthood. It does not meaningfully recover over the following decade. Mothers who keep working lose almost 15 paid hours a week on average. At 7 years after a first birth, women's earnings are on average less than half those of men (Andrew et al., 2021).

How often are mothers pushed out of their jobs?

Survey estimates put the number in the tens of thousands a year. A 2025 survey by Pregnant Then Screwed found that 12.3% of women were sacked, constructively dismissed or made redundant during pregnancy or maternity leave. Scaled up to the population, that could mean as many as 74,000 women a year (Pregnant Then Screwed, 2025).

The estimate rests on 5,870 respondents, randomly selected from a pool of 35,800 and weighted to represent the UK. It is an extrapolation, so the true figure could sit higher or lower. The same survey found that 49.5% of pregnant women, those on maternity leave and those returning from it reported a negative experience at work. Of those women, 20.6% left their employer (Pregnant Then Screwed, 2025).

Pregnant Then Screwed says it followed the method of the 2016 government and Equality and Human Rights Commission research. That earlier research surveyed 3,254 mothers. It found that 77% reported a negative or possibly discriminatory experience during pregnancy, maternity leave or on return to work. A further finding was that 11% felt forced to leave their job, which the report estimated could mean as many as 54,000 mothers a year (BIS and EHRC, 2016). Of that 11%, 1% were dismissed, 1% were made compulsorily redundant when others were not, and 9% were treated so poorly they felt they had to leave. Most of the departures sit outside any dismissal figure.

Is every departure caused by a poor workplace?

No. Childcare costs, a mother's own preferences and the local job market all shape the decision to stay, cut hours or leave. The surveys above count how many leave without separating the reasons. An employer should read them as a prompt to check its own data.

The IFS review notes that mothers appear to move into jobs with flexibility and short commutes, which can lower wages and limit progression (Andrew et al., 2021). A mother who takes a closer, more flexible, lower-paid job is making a sensible decision from the options in front of her. The question for the system is why the flexible option sits lower down the ladder. Some mothers choose to reduce their hours or leave, and that choice deserves respect. Others never had the alternative.

Childcare costs can tip the balance for a family, and employers have options there. The post on how employers can help with childcare costs covers them.

What would better support from employers and the system look like?

Better support covers the whole return as well as the pay during leave. That means phased returns, help with childcare costs, family benefits, managers trained to hold return conversations, and specialist support. Because mothers need different things, the starting point is asking each employee what would make her job workable.

A phased return lets a mother build back to full hours, or to a new pattern, with her pay and grade protected. Specialist support gives her somewhere to go between appointments, and the post on employee assistance programmes and maternity support covers that. Manager training matters because the manager is where policy meets daily life. A policy on paper and a policy in use are different things, and the manager decides which one a mother meets.

Sharing leave between parents spreads the time away from work across 2 careers. The UK introduced shared parental leave in 2015. In 2018 to 19, about 10,700 couples took paid shared parental leave. That is less than 2% of the 654,000 women who took maternity leave that year (Andrew et al., 2021). Sweden pays parental benefit for 480 days per child, with 390 days based on income and 90 days at SEK 180 per day. Of the income-based days, 90 are reserved for each parent and cannot be transferred to the other (Swedish Social Insurance Agency, 2026). The IFS review describes the evidence on the long-run effects of fathers' leave as mixed (Andrew et al., 2021). Shared leave works best when the pay and the workplace culture support it.

For comparison, US federal law gives eligible employees up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period (US Department of Labor, 2026). Leave length is a design choice in every country.

The Employment Rights Act lets the government set stronger dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers by regulation. Commencement is expected in 2027 (GOV.UK, 2026). The post on the Employment Rights Act 2025 and pregnant staff and returners sets out what employers need to know.

What does a successful return to work look like?

A successful return combines flexibility with progression. A mother works in a pattern that fits her family, and her pay, responsibility and prospects keep developing at the rate her skills warrant. Retention figures that count only who is still on the payroll miss the mothers who stayed and moved down.

IFS research finds that women who work half-time lose out on later wage progression. At 12 years after a first birth, women receive 33% less pay per hour than men (IFS, 2016). Flexible working that stalls a career moves the cost of the system's design onto the mother.

Employers can see this in their own data. Compare the grade, pay and responsibility of returners at 12 and 24 months after their return with their position before leave. That is a practical test of whether the return worked. Each mother who leaves also takes her training and her knowledge of your organisation with her.

Leave keeps her place. The return decides whether she stays.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

About Matresa

Matresa is a UK digital maternal health platform, founded by Mari-Carmen Sanchez-Morris, a mother of 3 with a nursing background in paediatric intensive care. It offers one personalised pathway from pregnancy to the child's second birthday, with preventative support, screening and early signal detection between appointments. Matresa is pre-launch, does not diagnose or treat, and gives employers an anonymised, aggregated dashboard showing how ready their returning parents are.

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