Mothers' dilemma

The children of women who work full time are twice as likely to fail their GCSEs as those whose mothers spend more time at home, according to new research.

The findings are featured on BBC1's edition of Panorama tonight, which claims the number of women in Britain in full- time employment has risen by 66 per cent since 1984. Professor Margaret O'Brien, who carried out the research with a team from North London University, said they found 11 per cent of children whose mothers worked part time left school with no GCSEs.

That more than doubled among children whose mothers worked full time to 25 per cent.

While 49 per cent of children with mothers working part-time passed five or more exams, only 33 per cent of children of full-time working mothers scored as many passes. All 600 of the families in the study had fathers in full-time work.