LONDON, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) — Three out of every four moms in England now work, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed Wednesday.
The employment rate for mothers increased from 68.9 percent to 74 percent between 2013 and 2018, according to the figures.
It means that over the past 20 years moms in England have experienced the largest increase in employment rates. There were 4.9 million mothers in employment in April to June 2018 compared to 3.7 million mothers in employment in 1996, which was 61.9 percent of mothers.
Half of moms (50.5 percent) work 30 or more hours a week compared with over two thirds (69.7 percent) of women without dependent children.
In the three months between April and June 2018, almost three-quarters (72.5 percent) of families where both parents lived together had both parents in employment with almost half (45.5 percent) of these families having both parents in full-time employment.
ONS said the English region with the highest level of working moms was the southwest where almost 80 percent have jobs, while London had the lowest percentage of mothers in work (65.8 percent).
When its comparable records started in 1996 just under 62 percent of moms went to work.
Since 2010, the employment rate for women with children has remained higher than for women without dependent children, whilst the employment rate for fathers has consistently been higher than for men without dependent children.
Lower rates of employment, said ONS, were typically seen for mothers with a youngest dependent child aged four years or under.
When the youngest dependent child was over four years old, the employment rates for mothers began to rise.
The figures also reveal that almost half (47.8 percent) of all mothers worked in the public administration, education and health industry sector, compared with 42.3 percent of women without dependent children.
“This is potentially due to a perceived higher flexibility and family-friendly policies in parts of this industry,” said ONS.
Banking and Finance ranked second for the highest number of working moms, with hotels and restaurants coming third.
