Women choose career over babies

A growing number of women working in the public sector are choosing not to have children because it is incompatible with their jobs, according to a survey.

More than 50 per cent of teachers, police officers and social workers questioned in the nationwide report were childless and believed that their jobs created a lifestyle that could not be combined with having children.

The inability to accommodate both motherhood and successful public sector careers was due to increasingly heavy workloads, high levels of stress and anti-social working hours, according to the research.

The report, commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council, questioned nearly 2,000 men and women who work for the police, social services and secondary schools.

While working environments had concentrated on creating sexual equality in the past five years, the result was the creation of a more ambitious and unforgiving workplace - particularly for women.

Cardiff Business School's Dr Annette Davies, who conducted the research, said: "There's no room for people who under-perform and that means working extra hours, taking on more work and greater stress. This has made it particularly hard for women to combine working with having children."

The research found that 53 per cent of the women questioned did not have children, most of whom attributed this to the fact that it was incompatible with their jobs.

According to public sector union Unison, the problem spans the whole of the public sector- - from nursing to local government workers- - and needs to be addressed.

A Unison spokeswoman said: "It is a grave issue and we know that it has been a problem for a lot of women. Combining very demanding careers with raising children is a very daunting prospect."

She added: "Employers need to look very carefully at introducing family-friendly policies in order to keep women in the workplace and to cover the shortages that are arising in the public sector."

The Equal Opportunities Commission also urged employers to ensure that family friendly policies were put in place to prevent women abandoning successful public sector careers.

Chairwoman Julie Mellor said: "If childless workers feel that the pressure of work cannot be combined with having a family they may well leave when they want to have children.

"But employers in all sectors who make family-friendly working a real option will be less likely to lose experienced staff."

Ms Mellor added: "If we are to achieve world-class public services in this country, the public sector has to make sure it can attract and hold on to the best people for the job."

She added: "Britain can't afford for women to stop having babies. It's in all our interests to have a new generation that will make up the workforce of the future, creating a productive economy and funding our pensions."