Stay-at-home mums facing cash crisis

TRADITIONAL families with a working father and stay-at-home mother have fallen far behind in the race for decent living standards, a think-tank report said yesterday.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the earnings of such fathers have fallen by 6 per cent in real terms since the mid-1990s, and that four out of ten families where only the father works now fall below the poverty line.

Part of the reason is that pay for working mothers has grown faster than that of fathers, making it difficult for traditional families to keep up. Nearly a quarter of children live in one-earner families, in 85 per cent of which is is the father who works.

The IFS said: ‘While the incomes of twoearner families are 10 per cent higher than in 2002–03, the incomes of one-earner families have not changed over that period.’

Laura Perrins, co-editor of the Conservative Woman website, has called for tax breaks for mothers who stay at home.