With shared parental leave legislation impending, 44% of working women consider sharing their entitlement

From April next year, it's expected that new legislation in the UK will mean that parents finally have more options over who takes time off work to care for their new arrival.

Although this is a breakthrough both for parental equality and hopefully for gender pay equality in the workplace, the impact will completely depend on how many couples take the newly available options.

A recent survey by Workingmums.co.uk suggests that 44% of working mothers would consider sharing their parental leave with their partner - up 3% on last year's figure.

17% of women living with a partner say they were the main breadwinner in the household - an embarrassing statistic in 2014 by any measure - however at least this number is improving slowly.

Other findings from the survey of 2391 working parents:

• 56% of women say they earn less pro-rata than they did before having children
• 56% make use of grandparents to reduce their childcare costs
• Many women got the flexible working they requested from employers, but 23% did not with 11% feeling their request was not even considered
• 41% pay nothing for childcare (up 11% from last year's responses), 11% pay up to £100 per month, 14% between £100 and £250 per month. 13% between £250 and £500 per month and 20% pay over £500 per month
• 60% think they have to work harder than men due to unconscious bias