Mounting personal debt, unaffordable house prices, larger mortgages, and an unfair income tax system are all pushing mothers back to work.

But that is not where they want to be, according to research by Cristina Odone for the British Centre for Policy Studies.*

The recent study was undertaken through a government poll of thousands of men and women. Although undertaken in the UK, the researchers have said it is highly likely that a similar survey undertaken in any Western country would produce similar results.

What Odone found is that the great majority of women actually want to stay at home with their family. They place a low priority on career, and prefer a part-time job that allows them the flexibility to spend more time with their children.

Only 12 percent of mothers polled wanted to work full-time and 31 percent did not want to work at all.

Their attitudes towards other mothers were consistent with their expectations of themselves: only 1 percent of mothers with children under five thought that the mother, in a family where the father worked and there were two pre-school children, should work full-time; 49 percent thought she shouldn’t work at all.

Significantly, fathers asked the same question offered an almost identical response: only 2 percent thought mum should work when her husband worked and the children were under five; and 48 percent thought she shouldn’t work at all.

Mothers were not alone in rejecting the materialist model. Four out of five women working full-time said they would choose not to work, if they didn’t have to for financial reasons. Among women working part-time, only 6 percent said they would choose to switch to full-time work.

This is not about women being work-shy, Odone argues – the percentage of men working full-time who don’t want to is 28 percent. It would seem that for women (and men), no matter what their age, income, or location, bringing up children takes priority over earning a wage packet. Working is not seen as the ultimate ambition.

They seek instead to use their education and skills to create a happy environment for others, as well as themselves, to thrive in.

They hold down a part-time job because they do not live to work, they live to love, Odone writes. They prize the care of children, husband and elderly relatives. One in six women who work part-time care for an elderly relative or a disabled member of the family.

Odone concludes that our modern, western, work-centred culture is based on a fundamental conundrum: the economy depends on workers, while society depends on carers.

She urges all government to ‘listen to real women’ and lists a number of imperative reforms which she believes would go some way to meeting the needs and wishes of real women.

These include:

• Changing government childcare strategy. Pumping billions of dollars of tax payers’ money into a child care system that is both unpopular with mothers and has been shown to harm children’s emotional development makes no sense. Instead, through the tax system and childcare vouchers, the Government should enable families to choose their childcare, including parental or close family care.

• Weekly national insurance credits for carers of children and the disabled.

• Reform of the tax and benefit systems so that they no longer penalise stay-at-home women, including introducing income-splitting.

• It should be easier, not more difficult, for businesses to employ part-time workers.

Finally, Odone argues: “We need to break the stranglehold that a small coterie of women who work full-time and buy into the macho way of life, enjoy on our public life.

“They have, for years, misrepresented real women who reject the masculine value system for one that rates caring above a career, and interdependence above independence.

“Real women do not want to commit full-time to a job. Real women do not see that as the route to self-realisation. They recognise that there is far more to life than a healthy profit or a great deal.

“Material woman, who apes material man, is over. The economy cannot sustain her, society feels betrayed by her. The future belongs to the real woman, who points to a lifestyle embracing feminine values. Let’s hope this Government – or the next – is brave enough to heed her call.”

*The Centre for Policy Studies is one of Britain’s best-known and most respected think tanks. Independent from all political parties and pressure groups, it advocates a distinctive case for smaller, less intrusive government, with greater freedom and responsibility for individuals, families, business and the voluntary sector.