Even the Best Benefits Can’t Keep Women from Leaving Jobs

Since the United States has no federal parental-leave policies, local governments and companies often step up to fill that void. Business Insider identified large public companies with the most generous parental leave and benefits for new parents. The list includes tech giants like Netflix and Amazon, as well as financial sector firms like Freddie Mac and Capital One. But do these company policies actually lead to measurable outcomes for women?

Turns out, they do! Parent friendly companies have higher shares of female employees, especially among senior employees, when compared to other large public companies, Revelio Labs workforce data and prescriptive analytics tools show. This pattern suggests that more generous parental leave policies might enable women to return to work after having children, and continue to climb the corporate ladder.

These generous policies also pay off in terms of employee happiness. Parent friendly companies have stronger employee ratings and better parental leave policies also coincide with superior diversity scores.

When it comes to employee retention, parent friendly companies have generally lower workforce attrition for female employees. During COVID however, with childcare centers and schools closing, even the most generous parental benefits could not deter female employees from leaving these parent friendly companies at greater rates. At other companies, parents may have had alternative childcare arrangements in place prior to COVID.

Key Takeaways:

• Parent-friendly companies have higher shares of females, especially in senior roles.
• They also have much happier employees.
• While female workforce attrition has been generally lower at parent-friendly companies, COVID still forced larger shares of women out of these companies despite the generous benefits.

For more info about Revelio Labs, its workforce data, and its set of prescriptive analytics tools, please feel free to reach out.