One in three working mums want to quit to look after their children Nearly six out of ten of all working mothers would cut down their hours to spend more time with their families if they could afford to More than a third of working mothers would like to give up their jobs completely and stay at home with their children, a major Government survey has found. It showed that millions of mothers of young children who go out to work do so only because they need to work to pay the bills. The research for the Department for Education found that, far from being anxious to get out of their homes and into employment, the great majority of mothers are only reluctant workers. Nearly six out of ten of all working mothers would cut down their hours to spend more time with their families if they could afford to, it said. The yearning among mothers to leave their jobs and look after their children instead is even more pronounced among the highest achieving women, the survey indicated. More than two-thirds of those in senior and middle management roles would spend fewer hours in the office and devote more time to their children if they had enough money, it said. The findings undermine the assumption long dominant in Whitehall that most mothers want to find jobs and that state policy should encourage them to do so. The Coalition has been criticised by campaigners for stay-at-home mothers for doing nothing to help one-earner families while subsiding working mothers with a £1,200-a-year childcare allowance to be introduced next year. Yesterday's survey also undermines the claims that prejudice and discrimination against women in male-dominated companies is the reason why women are heavily outnumbered in the boardroom. Rather, it suggests that many women who could get to the top in business choose instead to put their children before their careers. More than two-thirds of those in senior and middle management roles would spend fewer hours in the office and devote more time to their children if they had enough money The findings were seized on by groups for stay-at-home mothers. Laura Perrins, of the Mothers at Home Matter group, said: "The Government's own survey confirms the fact that the majority of mothers in work would like to spend more time at home caring for their children, not, as this Government would have us believe, less. Ministers have placed relentless pressure on mothers to do exactly the opposite by bring in policies that separate mothers from their young children. They care nothing for the needs of young children or the desire of mothers who want to love and care for their children at home. Until now the Government has only looked at measures of how they can lock up the toddlers in institutional care for ever longer hours. This is not what families want. They want time to care for their children. Instead of expanding childcare, for which families have no desire, we should be moving to a family-friendly taxation system. The Childcare and Early Years Survey, based on interviews with nearly 6,400 parents between November 2012 and last June, showed that 64 per cent of mothers of children under 15 now work, up from 60 per cent the previous year. But it disclosed that most of them would prefer to spend less time at work, and a substantial minority do not really want to work at all. The research said 37 per cent of working mothers would prefer not to work but to be stay-at-home mothers, if they could afford it. Fewer than half, 49 per cent, said they disagreed with the idea that they would prefer to be at home than to work. Some 57 per cent of mothers in paid work said they would like to work less and spend more time looking after their children if they could afford it. Only 23 per cent of working mothers said they would work more hours if they could find convenient, reliable and affordable childcare. The survey contained powerful evidence that better qualified and better-paid mothers are more anxious than less successful women to get time at home. "Mothers in higher socio-economic groups were more likely to prefer to work fewer hours if they could afford it in order to spend more time looking after their children, and less likely to prefer to work more hours if they could arrange good quality childcare," it said. It found that 67 per cent of middle and junior managers who were mothers wanted to work fewer hours to devote longer to their families; among senior managers the figure was 68 per cent. The research also said that more than seven out of ten parents who chose not to use childcare did so because they wanted to look after their children themselves. Only 13 per cent cited the high cost for not using childcare. Nearly half of parents who did use daycare, 49 per cent, said they found it easy or very easy to meet the costs. Childcare minister Liz Truss said: "It is encouraging that more parents are finding childcare to suit their work commitments." But critics say the lack of support for stay-at-home mothers means that the traditional choice of bringing up a family is being denied to millions of women.