For working mothers in Arkansas, the system isn’t working.
To fully understand why, the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas (WFA) and Ingeborg Initiatives partnered on a research project focused on their shared mission: supporting women in Arkansas. The resulting 2026 report, aptly titled “Holding It All Together: Working Moms and Child Care in Arkansas,” delves into the unique challenges working moms face in The Natural State.
Soirée got an exclusive first look at the landmark report revealing why Arkansas moms are being forced out of the workforce and what it will take to bring them back.
The Perfect Partnership: WFA & Ingeborg
WFA is the only statewide foundation exclusively dedicated to women and girls in Arkansas. Through collaborative partners like Ingeborg, it focuses philanthropic support on education and economic security for girls and women across the state.
Ingeborg Initiatives, founded by Olivia Walton, also seeks to empower mothers in Arkansas. In her role as director, Anna Koelsch is dedicated to making Arkansas the best place to be a mom.
“Ingeborg Initiatives’ mission is to make Arkansas the most supportive state to raise a family,” Koelsch says. “We are working to realize that goal by improving maternal health, advancing women’s economic opportunity and expanding access to quality care and early learning.”
According to WFA CEO Anna Beth Gorman, the partnership began during WFA’s 25th anniversary in 2023 as the two examined the economic impact of motherhood.
“I remember hearing [Olivia] ask a simple, but powerful question: ‘When a baby is born, everyone asks how the baby is doing, but does anyone stop to ask, is mom okay?’ That question stayed with me,” Gorman says. “As Arkansas’ leading research and advocacy organization focused on women’s economic security, we knew we had both the opportunity and the responsibility to answer it with data.”
The Method: How the Study Listened to Women
The research pairs national data with direct insight from Arkansas women. More than 800 women participated in the research team’s online survey, and more than 100 participated in a focus group or interview.
The Reason: Women Are Leaving the Workforce at Historic Rates
According to the report, Labor Force Participation Rates (LFPR) for all working women had risen to pre-pandemic rates by 2023-2024, thanks in part to pandemic-era flexibility in the workplace and expanded government funding for child care that has since expired.
Per the University of Kansas’ LFPR tracker, the first half of 2025 saw the steepest decline in women’s employment in more than 40 years. Arkansas’ rates mirrored the national trend, and WFA and Ingeborg teamed up to learn more about the root challenges women face in the workforce and factors that force them to leave it.
(Not) The Answer: Women’s Ambition
Arkansas moms leaving the workforce does not correlate with a lack of desire for work. In fact, the research revealed the opposite.
“The most powerful insight was the strength of Arkansas mothers’ commitment to work,” Gorman says.
“Despite rising costs, limited leave and significant mental strain, mothers are deeply engaged in the labor force. In fact, college-educated, prime working-age mothers (25-54) in Arkansas participate at rates above 90%. The issue isn’t lack of ambition. It’s the mounting pressure of systems that haven’t kept pace with the realities of modern working families.”
The Request: More Flexibility & Longer Leave
With many businesses returning to in-office work and traditional hours, Gorman notes the workplace support working moms desperately need.
“Flexible hours ranked as the number one requested workplace support across every demographic group — rural and urban, mothers and non-mothers, college-educated and not,” she says. “This tells us something important: Working families are not asking for less responsibility. They are asking for flexibility. When over half of respondents say they are struggling to ‘hold it all together,’ we should pay attention. If we modernize workplace policies, especially around flexibility and paid leave, we strengthen families and Arkansas’ economy.”
Arkansas women also lag in the amount of maternity leave taken, with one in five new moms going back to work less than six weeks after giving birth. Lack of paid family leave forces women to choose between financial stability and their own and their baby’s health.
“Recovery doesn’t end at hospital discharge,” Koelsch says. “The weeks and months that follow are physically demanding, financially precarious and logistically complex, and for too many Arkansas mothers, the decision about when to return to work is driven by economic necessity, not medical guidance or personal readiness.”
The Challenge: Child Care Costs
When asked about the biggest barrier to joining the workforce, moms are also overwhelmingly united: 69% say child care costs are a barrier to employment.
“The most surprising insight was how clearly math is driving decisions,” Koelsch says. “When families are paying about $17,500 a year — roughly 27% of median household income — the numbers simply don’t work. When the cost of care rivals or exceeds what a second income brings home, families make a rational financial decision to leave the workforce. The data makes that impossible to ignore.”
The report also highlights the recent changes to the Arkansas Department of Education’s School Readiness Assistance program. In September 2025, co-payments for eligible families increased while provider payments were reduced. Researchers found the consequences were two-fold: Many families had to leave their child care centers, and those centers were, in turn, forced to lay off staff.
The Reality: “This is an Economic Issue”
Koelsch argues that child care and paid leave are not simply perks, but economic infrastructure.
“The barriers we identified are structural, and structural problems have solutions. Child care costs, inflexible schedules and inadequate leave are addressable. Many of the tools employers need already exist — federal tax credits, dependent care assistance programs (DCAP), flexible scheduling policies,” she says.
Yet, participating in the workforce is a challenging juggling act for Arkansas moms, a struggle that affects the state’s economy as a whole, with the potential for businesses to lose their best talent.
“This is an economic issue hiding in plain sight,” Gorman says. “We’re not just talking about a family issue. We’re talking about workforce stability, business growth and the long-term competitiveness of our state.”
The Next Step: How to Support Working Families
Gorman urges Arkansans to read and share the report, and for business leaders and policy makers to use the information as a tool, noting that “small shifts — especially around scheduling, flexibility and leave policies — can have an outsized impact.
Koelsch points to tangible shifts employers can make to support working moms, such as utilizing federal tools like DCAP and the employer-provided child care credit to make child care support “more financially feasible than many employers realize.”
The report concludes with a challenge.
“Arkansas moms want to work and contribute to the state’s economy. The question is whether Arkansas will make the strategic investments necessary to enable them to do so.”
The data is in, and the math is clear: Arkansas cannot afford to leave its mothers behind.
Read the full report at womensfoundationarkansas.org/momsinar.
