London - Three out of four new mothers would stay at home to bring up their child if they could afford to, a report said recently.
A traditional family – with a breadwinning father and a full-time mother – remains the ideal for the vast majority of women, the study found.
The conclusion flies in the face of the assumption among politicians, civil servants and academics that working is good for mothers and that what families really want is more subsidised childcare.
According to the research, six out of ten mothers who return to work after having a baby do so only to pay off debt or ease financial pressures. Just one in seven said they wanted to develop their career.
The findings, produced from a survey commissioned by uSwitch of 1,008 mothers, back up a series of opinion polls in recent years, all of which showed that a high proportion of new mothers would prefer to stay at home.
No similar government or academic analysis of the wishes of mothers has been published, however.
Ann Robinson, of uSwitch, said: “At a time when women face the biggest squeeze on employment, new moms are being forced to return to the workplace because of financial pressures.
“The high cost of living coupled with the often crippling cost of a mortgage means that many households today need two incomes to get by.”
The poll found that 75 percent of new mothers said they would have stayed at home “if money was no object”. Only 12 percent did not want to be full-time mothers. A further 13 percent replied “don’t know”.
Of those who did return to jobs, 55 percent said they did so because money was tight and three percent said they had to go back because pregnancy had left them in serious debt.
Among those who gave other reasons, one in five said they needed something in their lives other than their home and baby and 14 percent wanted to continue their career.
Mothers also gave estimates of the extra costs their families were facing because of having a baby. The typical estimate was that family bills rose by just over £2,500, but in one in ten believed the annual added costs to be more than £5,000. - Daily Mail