Four in ten women will not take advantage of their full entitlement of maternity leave

According to recent research, almost half of British mothers will return to work sooner than the one year maternity leave they are entitled to, through worries about job security. Though new laws allowing women and their partners to share the 50 weeks of maternity and paternity leaves will come into effect in April 2015, women are still reluctant to benefit from this, partly because of the resulting drop in household income.