It would seem that mothers are happier when their children go to school.
A recent survey says that working women with children are significantly happier than stay-at-home mothers, regardless of how many hours they work. The survey by the Institute for Social and Economic Research found that life satisfaction for men depends on whether or not they have a full-time job and is not affected by how many hours they work
The study also showed an increase in life satisfaction for mothers only when their children start going to school.
It would seem that for men, the presence of children brings no increase in life satisfaction. It's hardly surprising then that fertility in Britain is declining
The Job Satisfaction and Family Happiness survey also found that job satisfaction for women with partners is greater when they work part-time, irrespective of how small or large these jobs are. It points out that women overall may be working as many hours as men, when the time spent on household tasks like cooking and childcare is taken into account, but a smaller proportion of their time is spent in paid work. More effort should be put into improving the quality of part-time jobs according to the survey.
And it argues that lowering the cost of child care would enable more women to work part-time, increasing their overall satisfaction.
Other reports have come up with conflicting conclusions. A report, conducted by the Centre for Policy Studies in 2003, said nearly half of working mothers would prefer to stay at home with their children if not for money worries. And a 2006 government survey found that more mothers said the desire to spend more time with their children was stopping them from working longer hours.
The new research was based on questions in the British Household Panel survey, a nationally representative sample of 5000 households (10,0000 individuals) who are surveyed every year. It uses data compiled between 1996 and 2006.
December 2007
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