More mothers return to work if grandparents aid childcare

 Mothers rely on grandparents to look after their children so they can go to work, a study has found.

Research from the University of Birmingham shows that 36 per cent of single mothers whose children are starting school use a grandparent for childcare and just under one in three who had a partner were doing the same.

Mothers who had a grandparent’s help were 26 per cent more likely to return to work, the study found. The research, which looked at 14,000 mothers from the Millennium Cohort Study, also showed that 40 per cent of grandparents live within 15 minutes of their daughters.

Dr Shireen Kanji said: “Grandparents are having a large causal effect on mothers’ participation in paid work but grandparents themselves are under pressure to extend their paid working lives as a result of state pension age changes.” Women’s state pension age is due to rise to 65 next year.