Minnesota was recently ranked the 11th-best state for working mothers based on child care, professional opportunities, and “work-life balance” indicators.
 
Personal finance social network WalletHub released a report that evaluated nine different metrics within those three categories to determine which states are most friendly to working moms.
 
For child care, the study ranked day care quality, child care costs, access to pediatric services, and public school quality. “Professional opportunities” involved the gender pay gap and the ratio of female to male executives per state. For “work-life balance,” the study ranked parental leave policies, length of the average woman’s workday, and average commute time. All of the metrics were equally weighted except for the workday length and commute time, which were weighted at half the importance.

 
WalletHub said it used information from the following sources to compile the list: the U.S. Census Bureau, Child Care Aware of America, U.S. News & World Report, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the National Partnership for Women & Families.
 
The top-ranked state was Oregon, which placed 15th for child care, 10th for professional opportunities, and first for its work-life balance. Following Oregon in the top 10, respectively, were Washington, D.C., Vermont, Maine, New York, Delaware, Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, and Ohio.
 
Delaware ranked first for child care and Washington, D.C. ranked first for professional opportunities.

 
Minnesota ranked 22nd for child care, 16th for professional opportunities, and eighth for work-life balance. When broken down by each individual metric, Minnesota ranked highest for its day care quality, length of its average woman’s workday, and its parental leave policies. Its less-than-stellar rankings came in its access to pediatric services and its public school quality.
 
Louisiana fared worst on the list, followed by Mississippi, Wyoming, Idaho, and South Carolina. While Louisiana scored well for work-life balance, it was nearly dead last for both child care and professional opportunities.
 
Other states of note include Georgia, which had an outstanding child care score but ranked near the bottom for the other two categories and thus ranked 41th overall. On the opposite end, Hawaii ranked quite well for professional opportunities and work-life balance but was almost last place for child care, ranking 29th overall.
 
Click here to see the full list.
 
Twin Cities Business recently spoke with 10 of Minnesota’s top women executives to learn about their leadership approaches and paths to success, read more here.