A few generations ago, there was no reason for women to seek a career - they were expected to find satisfaction staying at home and looking after their kids and other family members only.

But in today's world, women go to work and come back home only to do the bulk of household chores. And, if British researchers are to be believed, career women actually end up working longer hours than men.

According to the researchers at Cambridge University, while men may spend longer at the office, it is the women who work more each week if domestic and paid employment is added together, The Daily Telegraph reported.

"The average man in full-time employment works about 55 hours a week. In the United Kingdom, that figure includes about 3.6 hours of commuting, and eight hours of domestic work such as cleaning, cooking and child care.

"By contrast, the average working week for a woman in full-time employment in the European Union is 68 hours. For British women, that comprises 40 hours in the office, 3.3 hours commuting and 23 hours a week spent doing domestic work.

"But even women who work part-time put in longer hours overall than men in full-time work, because they do so many household chores. Women with part-time jobs work on average 57 hours a week.

"That is made up of 21.3 hours in paid work, 2.4 hours commuting and 32.7 hours of domestic work," according to the British researchers.  The researchers came to the conclusion after carrying out a survey on more than 30,000 people in Britain.

They also found that the domestic workload prevents millions of women from working the long office hours typically required to break into the top management jobs on high salaries.

According to lead researcher Dr Brendan Burchell, "The working lifestyles of most people in Europe still seem to be determined by gender. 

"A lot of women feel they don't have choices. They have children with a partner and reduce their hours in the early stages of a child's life and when they want to re-establish themselves in their careers and in terms of their earning power, they are so far behind their husbands.

"There should be more equal career breaks between men and women when children are born - for instance, by encouraging men to take their parental leave entitlements."