The 10 most 'family friendly' jobs in the US with salaries over $75,000
The U.S. doesn’t have a reputation for offering family friendly or flexible jobs. But they do exist. In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Indeed.com revealed the top 10 jobs that say they offer flexibility and still pay relatively well.
Andrew Flowers, an economist at Indeed.com, explained how the company mined job postings for those that mentioned dozens of keywords pertaining to family friendly or flexible jobs — such as “work from home” or “parental leave.”
Flowers found that 3.6% of job postings — or 1 in 30 — included terms indicating they were family friendly and flexible. This meant that the job came with family leave, or flexible working hours.
“Sales managers and sales engineers likely have flexible schedules because of the nature of sales,” Flowers said. “You can do sales outside of the traditional 9-to-5 schedule. Some of the higher-skill, higher-paying positions — like lawyer, software engineer and accountant — are likely advertising generous benefits to attract talent, with the benefits likely being ‘family leave’ or ‘work from home,’ depending on the job.”
Position: Sales Managers
Average salary: $137,650
Percentage of Indeed postings advertising flexible policies: 11.7%
Position: Sales Engineers
Average salary: $106,950
Percentage of Indeed postings advertising flexible policies: 8.1%
Position: Personal Financial Advisors
Average salary: $124,140
Percentage of Indeed postings offering flexible policies: 6.5%
Position: Lawyers
Average salary: $141,890
Percentage of Indeed postings offering flexible policies: 5.6%
Position: Engineering Managers
Average salary: $146,290
Percentage of Indeed postings offering flexible policies: 5.5%
Position: Accountants and Auditors
Average salary: $77,920
Percentage of Indeed postings offering flexible policies: 5.3%
Position: Chemical Engineers
Average salary: $112,430
Percentage of Indeed postings offering flexible policies: 5.0%
Position: Medical and Health Services Managers
Average salary: $111,680
Percentage of Indeed postings offering flexible policies: 4.9%
Position: Physician Assistants
Average salary: $104,760
Percentage of Indeed postings: 4.8%
Position: Chief Executives $196,000
Average salary: $196,050
Percentage of Indeed postings offering flexible policies: 4.7%
US lagging behind in paid family leave
Flowers highlighted that the U.S. has been an outlier compared to other advanced economies when it came to employment laws regarding paid family leave. He said that Austria had three times as many flexible or family-friendly job postings on Indeed.com as the U.S.
One of the reasons the U.S. lags behind is the way foreign governments are structured. “Many of these countries have paid family leave system or welfare benefit system or a paid family leave mandate,” he said.
The U.S. also has fewer unionized workers than most European countries, he noted. Without unions, Flowers said that “there’s less bargaining power for U.S. workers.” Hence, the U.S. ends up in a position where they have to advertise these family friendly arrangements. “Many countries may not even advertise for these arrangements, because it’s assumed to be the case, the social model of the country assumes it.”
Flowers also notes that it varies between states as well. “You can look at Rhode Island, California, New Jersey have long had paid family leave laws on their books as at the state level.”
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