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Doubts over 'supermums'

More than half of adults in the UK think that family life will suffer if a woman goes to work, suggesting that support for gender equality is diminishing, new research claims.

The study, by a Cambridge University sociology professor, compared theresults of social attitude surveys from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s fromthe UK, the US and Germany. It found that only 46 per cent of women and42 per cent of men currently believe that family life would not sufferif women went to work, compared to 50 per cent of women and 51 per centof men in the 1990s.

The study, published in a new book, Women and Employment; Changing livesand new challenges (Edward Elgar Publishing), said the change had beenmore extreme in the US, where the percentage of people who believefamilies do not suffer if women work has fallen from 51 per cent in 1994to 38 per cent in 2002.

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