It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman with a family and a career is in want of more hours in the day. However, despite this, typically conversations around gender inequity at work focus on a pay gap, rather than the consequences of what happens when women don’t have as much time as their male counterparts.
In a new study published in the International Journal of Management Reviews, researchers analyzed 88 studies on the interaction between “gender, time, and organizations” in Africa. The researchers wanted to spotlight African organizations to understand how caregiving and other cultural expectations play out at work.
They found that the unpaid labor women do at home creates a hidden time gap that limits their ability to get ahead at work—which in turn impacts training, networking, and taking on the projects at work that get you promoted.
While the analysis focuses on Africa, the researchers explained that similar patterns exist all over the world. Outside of work, women do more of the unpaid domestic work, and they are expected to contribute more to their social lives. “Women are not falling behind because they lack ambition or ability. They are falling behind because they are carrying a second shift that workplaces still largely ignore. If we want real inclusion, we have to stop designing jobs around the assumption that everyone has unlimited time,” said professor Toyin Adisa at the University of East London, one of the study’s authors.
Solving the time issue will take exactly that—time. Professor Toyin Adisa said, “If we are serious about inclusion, we cannot rely on small policy tweaks. We have to rethink how work is organized and how care is valued across society.” The study offered some suggestions for how to even the playing field: most notably, better childcare support options.
The need for better childcare holds true in America as well. According to a 2026 Care.com study, parents in the U.S. spend 20% or more of their yearly income on childcare costs and31% are forced to use their savings to cover the expense.
Similarly, a 2025 Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report found that childcare for one infant is more expensive than public college tuition in 38 states and Washington D.C. “Child care is unaffordable for working families everywhere in the country, and it’s even more unattainable for minimum wage workers and the very workers that administer child care,” Katherine deCourcy, EPI research assistant, said in a press release on the findings. “This isn’t inevitable—it is a policy choice. Federal and state policymakers can and should act to make child care more affordable, and ensure that child care workers can afford the same quality of care for their own children.”
While most parents (85%) say that childcare is an essential workplace benefit, one in three employers do not offer it.
Regardless of how desperate families are for more affordable childcare and how much it could impact women’s career prospects it still seems out of reach in the U.S. On Wednesday, Trump told guests at an Easter event that the federal government won’t pay for childcare and that it should be left up to the states. “We can’t take care of daycare. We’re a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people,” Trump said. “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare.”