Responsibility for childcare and housework forces British women into lower-paid and lower-status jobs than British men, according to European-wide research by Cambridge University. The study questioned 30,000 people across the EU and concluded that gender equality had made little progress since the early 1990s. It said that the relationship between doing more domestic chores and putting in fewer hours at paid work was a vicious circle, while flexible working could be contributing to locking women in low-paid jobs. Men also lost out, said the report, because they were unhappy with their work-life balance.