7 in 10 say new mothers should not go back to work

MORE than 70 per cent of Britons believe mothers should not return to full-time work after having a baby, a major survey has revealed.

Despite efforts to help women get back into the workforce after giving birth, researchers for the annual British Social Attitudes report found a large majority of people disapprove of the idea.

The 2017 survey, published today, revealed even though about threequarters of mothers with young children hold down a job, seven out of ten people say they should not have a full-time post while a third believe those with pre-school children should not work at all.

The findings follow the failure of policies devised to draw mothers back into the workforce, in particular the shared parental leave scheme allowing fathers to take time off to look after a baby.

The system, which was introduced by former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in 2015, allows both parents of young children to share 50 weeks of leave – but of 285,000 couples are year who are thought to be eligible, only around 6,000 take advantage.

The reluctance of couples to relinquish traditional roles has led to growing pressure from MPs and state bodies for mothers to go back to work.

More working mothers would cut the gender pay gap and, ministers believe, improve the quality of the workforce. Caroline Waters, of the Government’s Equality And Human Rights Commission, suggested last year that all British employers should offer flexible hours to both sexes to make life fairer for working parents.

She added: ‘We need to overhaul our culture and make flexible working the norm; looking beyond women as the primary caregivers and having tough conversations about the biases that are rife in our workforce and society.’

The BSA findings revealed that 33 per cent of people believe that mothers of young children should stay at home; 38 per cent said they should work part-time; and only 7 per cent think new mothers should take full-time work.

The survey was based on nearly 4,000 hour-long interviews.