Men have gained access to paid parental leave at twice the rate of women during the past five years, new figures show.

Half of all working men now have jobs that give them some form of paid leave to be taken at the birth of their child, research for the Federal Government's inquiry into paid parental leave has found.

But men who are eligible for guaranteed leave are clustered in the same group as women with paid maternity leave entitlements - high income, full time and more commonly public sector workers.

The research was published by the Productivity Commission yesterday as part of the work it will do before the completion of the final report on parental leave, which is due to be handed to the Federal Government in February.

Its draft report, released last month, recommended giving mothers 18 weeks leave paid at the minimum wage and all fathers a fortnight of two weeks leave.

Under the recommendation the baby bonus would be scrapped and family payments suspended for women who had been working in the year leading up to the birth of a child.

But the baby bonus would still be paid to non-working mothers.

The recommendation is designed to support the thousands of low-income women who do not have access to any form of paid maternity leave and frequently tell researchers they are forced back to work much earlier than they would like because of financial considerations.

The research found that women who returned to work quickly after the birth of a child were likely to be either high income or very low income earners. Mothers on middle incomes were most likely to remain out of the workforce for longer.

Of women in paid work before they gave birth 15 per cent were back at work within three months and 29 per cent were back within six months. More than half of women tried to stay at home for one year.

The percentage of women with access to paid maternity leave grew from 43 per cent to 53 per cent between 2002 and 2007. The percentage of men grew from 38 to 50 during the same period.

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