British women are forced to leave work, stay home: Report

Statistics from the Institute of Public Policy Research, a reputed British think tank, show that there has been a spike in redundancies among women employees.

The figures state that in the three months leading up to June 2010, 30 percent of redundancies were women, but by the same period in 2011 this number rose to 40 percent. Last year, the public sector workforce shrank by 143,000, the Daily Express reported.

According to Dalia Ben-Galim, the institute's associate director, male employees were the big losers in the recession, but women were harder hit by the recovery's squeeze on public spending as they are twice as likely to have public sector jobs.

Cuts in childcare tax credits also mean that for some women work no longer pays and they are better off staying at home, Ben-Galim states.