Care costs make 44% of women quit work

More women in London are forced to give up their jobs to look after children than anywhere else in the country, research shows.

Daycare Trust said the spiralling cost of child-care in the capital - now £4.66 an hour on average - means tens of thousands of women have to stay at home. Figures highlighted by the trust show 44.4 per cent of London women of working age are economically inactive due to "caring obligations".

Anand Shukla, acting chief executive of Daycare Trust, said: "To see so many women withdraw from the job market is a woeful waste of potential."