Employment: Fathers shoulder burden of work

Fathers work an average of four hours a week more than men without children, with most having full-time jobs and working on average more than 47 hours a week.

They are working more than double the hours of working mothers - on average more than 20 hours difference - as the gap between fathers' and mothers' employment rates have changed. According to the Office of National Statistics, fathers with dependent children are more likely to be employed than other men with 85 per cent - 5.1 million - working in 1994 and only 6 per cent economically inactive. The increase in mothers' employment has not resulted in any compensating changes in fathers' employment.