Marriages where husbands are involved in childcare and chores are at less risk of divorce than marriages where men do minimal housework, new research has found.

The study, from the London School of Economics, found that the greater the fathers’ contribution to looking after children and doing household chores, the lower the risk of divorce.

The research found, relative to families where women are homemakers and men do little housework and childcare, the risk of divorce is 97 per cent higher when the mother works outside the home and her husband makes a minimal contribution to housework and childcare.

But the study found that there was no increased risk of divorce when the mother works and her husband’s contribution to housework and childcare is at the highest level.

The lowest-risk situation is one where the mother does not work and the father gets involved in the highest level of housework and childcare, the study showed.

The paper, Men’s Unpaid Work and Divorce: Reassessing Specialisation and Trade, authored by Dr Wendy Sigle-Rushton, focused on 3,500 couples who had stayed together for five years after the birth of their first child. About 20 per cent divorced by the time the child was 16.

The fathers’ participation in housework, shopping and childcare was measured in the number of tasks he was reported by the mother to have done in the previous week. Just over half of fathers in 1975 were reported to have helped with none or one task (51 per cent), while 24 per cent carried out two tasks. About a quarter carried out three or four, the highest contribution.

Nearly a third of mothers were employed, only 5 per cent of whom were working full-time.

The data came from the British Cohort Study, which followed the lives of 16,000 children born in one week in 1970.