In a TikTok video, a career coach named Brooke Taylor explained that women without kids have the hardest time succeeding at work because they’re the most flexible, which means they are always picking up the slack.
There’s always been a common assumption that women without kids have a much easier time in the workplace. Without the demands of juggling both childcare and their work responsibilities, they are free to dedicate themselves to their professional success. But Taylor argued that women without kids are actually fighting a constantly losing battle because they are expected to do the work of their co-workers with kids, and they aren’t getting any benefits for it.
Career coach Brooke Taylor explained that childfree women don’t actually have it the easiest at work. In fact, the reason they have such a hard time succeeding at work is their perceived “free time” because they don’t have any kids at home to take care of.
“Childless women are the people who have the hardest time in the workplace,” Taylor said. “Who is the person who’s picking up the slack during bedtime or bath time? Who’s the person who’s stepping in on, you know, over Easter or Christmas or something like that?”
Taylor pointed out that it’s usually the person who has the most flexibility, and that tends to be childfree women. They’re the ones who are getting the short end of the stick, rather than women with actual kids at work. Unsurprisingly, many childfree people agreed with Taylor’s take.
Some pointed out that they’ve had to step up and do more work because women at their job were on maternity leave, while others admitted they’ve been called in on their day off because employees with children were out.
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In 2022, ResumeLab conducted a survey regarding the treatment of childfree employees compared to those with kids. It’s important to note that the majority of respondents had children, and still, 72% admitted that childfree workers were treated unfairly because they didn’t have kids.
The most common experiences of the childfree were being denied time off so employees with kids could take off, being forced to work overtime to pick up the slack for employees with kids who had to leave or couldn’t work late, and simply being given more robust workloads because they were assumed to have the time to tackle it.
Sociologist Amy Blackstone at the University of Maine told ResumeLab, “there’s very little that protects their [childfree] time to care for themselves and their families and enjoy work-life balance.”
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Despite Taylor’s take on the fact that childfree women are getting the brunt of all the work because of their choices, it isn’t stopping women from wanting to have a career before they even think about having kids. Four times as many single American women prioritize building a professional career over having kids, according to a study conducted by the creative marketing agency Hill Holliday and its market research company, Origin.
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The study, “Reaching the Modern Independent Woman,” included surveys from single men (no children, never married), single women (no children, never married), and married women. For single women, the top three priorities had nothing to do with marriage or family.
Forty-four percent of single women respondents ranked “living on your own” as their No. 1 priority, 34% ranked establishing a career as their top priority, and 27% ranked financial security as most important. Considering most women are not looking to have kids before they’ve established themselves in their careers, this favoritism toward women with kids will only create a further uneven environment in the workplace.
The assumption that childfree women have more time on their hands has been proven not to always be true, yet it still continues to dictate how responsibilities are given out amongst women with kids and women without. But the fact remains, even if their free time was spent lounging poolside, childfree women should not be picking up the slack without the pay and promotions to reflect all that extra sacrifice.
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Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
