'Give the mother's time off to father'

The call was made last week by Paul Gregg, professor of economics at Bristol University, following research he conducted with Elizabeth Washbrook of Oxford University that showed that fathers could play a key role in their children's early education. The researchers found that where fathers had shouldered 25 per cent of the caring burden, including bathing, feeding, reading stories and singing songs, their children performed 2 per cent better in national curriculum tests for maths and English at the age of seven.

They also found that fathers were most likely to become involved if their spouse or partner returned to work, thereby helping to compensate for the absence of the working mother.

Professor Gregg suggested that while mothers cared for their newborn child for the first six months, the child's father could then 'take over' for the next six months.

He said, 'There is certainly an argument for sharing the burden, particularly in the early years. There are costs to businesses to consider, but this research suggests it has some value.'

Sharing maternity leave in this way has already been mooted by the charity Fathers Direct.

The researchers found no evidence that the children of mothers who returned to work within 18 months did worse in school. Professor Gregg said the research did not suggest that 'fathers are better than mothers', but that 'Dad's first hour with a child was better than Mum's 40th hour'.

He added, 'It is the new stimulus and extra variety that dads often bring that helps the child. The biggest kick they provide is in helping with reading.'

The study also found that the children of parents who both worked and where the father had no involvement in their upbringing fared worse than those in a lone parent family. Professor Gregg said this was probably because 'the single mother will do that bit more to compensate for the absence of a father'.

The research was based on data from the Bristol Birth Cohort study, which looked at the educational and social development of 9,000 babies born in the Avon area in the early 1990s.