Who do you think feels more successful in their career: a parent of two who prioritizes time with their family over anything else or a young professional who doesn't have any children?

Conventional wisdom might lead you to believe that childfree workers feel more successful in their careers because they have more time to focus on it. However, our data from The State of Work & Career Success 2022 shows that parents feel more successful in achieving their career and life goals than those without kids.

By the Numbers: Working Parents Feel More Successful than Childfree Workers

Working parents (defined as those with children living in the household under the age of 18) feel more successful than childfree individuals (defined as all workers who do not have children under 18 living in the household) in just about every dimension of career and life success.

More than half of the parents surveyed feel satisfied with their career progress, current position, and compensation for current position, but childfree workers trail behind both parents and the overall average. There’s obviously still a lot of room for improvement for everyone, but there’s a marked difference in perceived success.

Working parents and childfree workers generally have the same priorities, but parents also feel more successful across almost all career and life goals.

What Makes the Difference?

But here’s the thing: I don't think there's anything about having children (in this case those that are under 18 and living in the household) that inherently makes you feel more successful in your career. So what is responsible for this difference?

Some of the differences can be explained by demographics. Parents are more likely to be older, and those further along in their careers may naturally feel more successful in achieving their goals. Gen Y and Gen X also have the highest reported sentiments of success according to our research.

Working parents are also more likely to have degrees in higher education and to have an annual income greater than $75k. This is, again, unsurprising; the degrees help people secure higher income, and the income makes people feel secure in starting a family.

However, these factors alone don’t account for the scale of these differences. But I think I know what does.

11 years ago, I was working as the CMO of a technology company. I had recently had my second child...and I just felt like I was being pulled in so many different directions, never actually able to devote the amount of energy I wanted to in any area. This was what I’d spent most of my life working toward up until this point, but I needed to make a change for my family, my life, and my own mental health.

Really, having kids is what almost drove me to a breaking point — but it was also the catalyst for re-evaluating my life and what success really meant to me. It wasn’t the corner office or the fancy title that I wanted. It was a career that afforded me the freedom and flexibility to work on my own terms rather than someone else’s. 

Strategic Planning & Work-Life Integration: The Keys to Success

Kids don’t make you feel more successful. Kids make you plan and prioritize.

And that aligns perfectly with what I shared back in July: “Workers who feel highly successful have stronger attitudes and beliefs related to career-life integration, flexibility, individuality, and ongoing development.”

When work and life are integrated, when you have clarity on what you want and you have a plan to get there, you make more holistic decisions that lead to more fulfillment. It just so happens that you’re forced to do that if you want to be successful at work and at home.

But you don’t have to have a kid to get this perspective or start strategizing — and take it from me, it’s actually going to be much easier to do if you are childfree!

This article was originally published on LinkedIn as part of Connie Steele’s monthly newsletter, The Human Side of Work. You can find the original article and subscribe to the newsletter at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/working-parents-vs-childfree-workers-who-feels-more-wang-steele.