Working mums happier than stay-at-home moms

The study was led by Alison Booth and Jan Van Ours and was carried out by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.

It was found that even those mothers who work more than 45 hours a week benefit from much higher levels of “life satisfaction” than full-time mums.

This finding counters the long held assumption that mothers would be more pleased if they stayed home with their children.

It was concluded three years ago by a research conducted by the Centre for Policy Studies that almost half of the mothers were working only because they needed money.

The popularity of David Cameron’s promise to offer tax breaks to married couples to help mothers stay at home was also doubted by the researchers.

However, the report guaranteed Job Satisfaction and Family Happiness, high levels of life satisfaction was found among women working part time, those who work 30-34 hours a week and 41-45 hours a week also reported high levels of wellbeing.

“Women without children do not care about their working hours, while women with children are significantly happier if they have a job, regardless of how many hours it entails,” Times Online quoted the authors of the report, as saying.

The data compiled in eight years of the British Household Panel Survey, which questions 5,500 households on an annual basis, had been utilized for the report.

It was also found that children had no role in increasing life satisfaction for men.

However, among women, it increases only when children start going to school.

The report concluded: “Given this finding, perhaps it is not surprising fertility is declining in Britain.”

The Conservatives will be charting out plans to make single parents, who have children at school, work and to make joining a training programme a condition of receiving benefit. (ANI)