Women want flexibility at work, but worry it could hurt their careers and struggle to find remote and hybrid jobs

Women are overwhelmingly ambitious in their careers, and they see workplace flexibility as a pillar for helping them get ahead at work.

A majority of women workers, 87%, say they're ambitious in their careers, with roughly half, 48%, saying they're "very ambitious," according to CNBC's annual SurveyMonkey Women at Work survey, which was fielded to over 18,800 U.S. workers between February 21 and March 3.

But many worry the stigma of flexible arrangements could harm their career growth, and flexibility is harder to come by for those seeking new opportunities.

Women value a variety of factors at their current jobs.

A majority of women say they're in their role now because they enjoy their work, and many others say it's because their job is "overall working for me right now."

More specifically, 34% cited having good work-life balance in their current positions, and 27% said they were happy with their flexible work arrangement.

Women earlier in their careers, from age 18 to 34, are most likely to say they value work-life balance and flexible work arrangements provided by their jobs.

As for where women are working, 75% said they are mostly or fully in-person, 11% are mostly or fully remote, and 12% are hybrid and spend an equal amount of time onsite and remote.

But for those with access to flexible work benefits, many are afraid of repercussions for using them: 40% of women say they are concerned with taking advantage of flexible benefits like paid leave, work-from-home or flex time because it could prevent them from achieving their career goals.

A recent wave of return-to-office mandates from the federal government to corporate America could make these concerns worse, says Tara Van Bommel, director of research at Catalyst, a nonprofit that focuses on building equitable workplaces for women.

"Even if they're hybrid, if they've gone from having more flexibility to rolling it back, that gives people the impression that it's not safe to take these options," Van Bommel tells CNBC Make It.

Workers may be reluctant to take flexible-work arrangements if they don't see leadership modeling it, too, she adds.

There's a difference between the reasons why women want to leave their jobs and what drives them to actually quit.

Some 21% of women surveyed said they had "seriously considered quitting" their job in recent months, citing that they wanted to alleviate work stress and find a job with higher pay.

However, among the 8% of women who did recently quit, the No. 1 factor for doing so was to find a job with better work-life balance.

Some women are more likely to prioritize job flexibility even if it means less pay: Women are slightly more likely than men to stay at a job because of its flexibility and less likely because the pay is good.

Taking a more flexible

job for less pay can make a big difference for women who take on more parenting and caregiving responsibilities, Van Bommel says.

"We see pay as this tangible outcome, but the benefit you get from flexibility in your life has a real, tangible benefit too," she says. "I think people are making those mental calculations when they're thinking about jobs."

Roughly 1 in 4 women say their work-life balance improved in the last year and credited having a more flexible schedule with being the main reason why, over having a decreased workload, changing to a less demanding role or having more remote work opportunities.

But job flexibility is harder to come by in today's challenging job market.

Many workers are frustrated by the current labor market, where hiring is down, job creation is sluggish and challenges in the AI-enabled application process abound.

Among roughly 700 women looking for a job right now and surveyed by CNBC, 90% report that it is very difficult, with one of the main reasons being that they're unable to find remote or hybrid job opportunities.

Women (46%) are more likely than men (27%) to cite this as a main barrier to finding a new job.

There are fewer remote jobs and increased competition for them: As of January 2025, just 9% of U.S. LinkedIn job postings were for remote roles, but they received 40% of applications on the platform; roughly 13% of jobs were listed as hybrid and received nearly 20% of all applications, according to LinkedIn data provided to CNBC Make It.

Securing a remote or hybrid job could get even harder with new RTO mandates as bosses expect workers to spend more time in offices. Whether other companies follow could come down to whether mostly in-office companies can demonstrate strong business outcomes like higher productivity and profits.

But some research indicates new RTO rules don't have positive impacts on employee engagement or business profits.

"I think more organizations are testing the waters [of] 'how much can we roll this back?'" Van Bommel says of the remote- and hybrid-work pull-back.

"But there are also plenty of other organizations who realize this is the future, this is the way of work," she adds. "People are going to want to go to those companies."

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