the shines wearing off super moms its not just the men who say this but a growing number of women too both are inclining to agree that a womans place is at home wiping the sheen off the notion of gender equality in developed countries a cambridge survey sayswomen already juggling between childcare and their careers are being forced to contribute more to the home than men when it comes to the clash between work and family life doubts about whether a woman should be doing both are starting to creep in both women and men are more likely to believe the family will suffer if a woman works fulltime the survey reveals the conclusions are based on analysis of social attitude surveys over the past three decades by jacqueline scott cambridge universitys professor of empirical sociologyrealisation that home duties were impeding their careers was the highest among women in the 1980s the next decade saw a surge in women wanting to advance just as men making gender equality the most contested subject in the developed world the present decade is seeing the concept losing steam for the simple reason that gender inequality at home has remained unchanged the cambridge survey findssurprisingly the survey findings have gone down well even with vocal gender equality groups perhaps vindicating the findings the guarding quotes fawcett society which campaigns for equal rights for men and women as saying the study showed how attempts to shoehorn women into workplaces made by men for men have failedkat banyard the campaigns officer explains women still shoulder the bulk of caring and housework at home the long working hours culture and lack of flexible working means women are presented with impossible choices forced to choose between caring for a family at home or maximising their career opportunities the result motherhood carries a penalty and women and men are straitjacketed by gender stereotypesmary macleod chief executive of the family and parenting institute adds many mothers tell us that in the first year of a babys life they want to stay at home but often feel they have to return to work too early because of financial constraints we need to do more to help mothers and fathers by increasing wellpaid parental leave and changing how it can be shared between themscotts analysis is based on data from the international social survey programme and other polls of public opinion in britain the us and germany since the 1980s each with sample sizes of between 1000 and 5000 peoplein 1994 51 per cent of women in britain and 52 per cent of men said they believed family life would not suffer if a woman went to work by 2002 those proportions had fallen to 46 per cent of women and 42 per cent of men the number of people thinking the best way for a woman to be independent is to have a job also declinedscott says the results are even more extreme in the us where the percentage