WORKING women “save” £12,000 for every year they put off having children, research has found.

The study of 202 pairs of twins provides one of the clearest indications of the financial rewards that women can reap by delaying motherhood until they have established themselves in their career.

Denise Hawkes, a research officer at the Institute of Education and author of the research, said: “Women who give themselves more years of experience in the workplace before having children tend to come back to work quicker after their maternity leave. Because they are more connected to their employer, it’s easier for them to come back part-time if they want to, rather than leave the labour market altogether.”

The research, to be published at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference this week, is based on data from 69 identical pairs of twins and 133 fraternal pairs, all women, who live throughout Britain who responded to questionnaires.

The average age of the women was 48 and they had an average of 2.2 children. The average age at which they had their first child was 25.

Studying twins, raised together in the same household with the same economic circumstances and educational opportunities, enabled Dr Hawkes to get a measure of the effects of motherhood on the women’s income that was not distorted by differences in age, class or wealth.

After comparing both the age at which the women from each pair of twins had their children and their income in later life, the study found that a delay in becoming a mother of only one year added 2 per cent to the family income, or £12,000 over a lifetime.

“For every extra year a woman delays motherhood, she saves another £12,000 over her lifetime,” Dr Hawkes, an economist, said.

Twins from disadvantaged backgrounds were more likely to become mothers early. Those who left school early and had few steady jobs were more likely to see motherhood as their entry into adult life.

The research also suggests that there may be an intergenerational aspect to the cycle of disadvantage. The twins tended to have their first babies at a similar age to their own mother’s first birth.

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