Working mums raise successful daughters, caring sons: New study

A new study has revealed that leaving children to go to work may have significant benefits on them later in life.

It was found that daughters are more likely to have better careers, higher pay and more equal relationships if their mothers worked than those of stay-at-home mothers, the BBC reported. However, it had little impact on a son's employment prospects; but working mothers do tend to have kinder and caring sons.

Researchers from Harvard Business School analysed data from the Family and Changing Gender Roles section of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). The survey covered 24 countries, including North and South America, Australia, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The study concluded that women across the world have increasingly entered the paid workforce, but the parallel increase in men's contributions to unpaid work within households lags behind. Women's entrenched responsibilities for household work constrain their choices in the public sphere.

Men also bear costs from the unequal distribution of household responsibilities; gendered practises and norms in public and private spheres act as barriers to men who want to take on bigger roles at home.