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Having children can make you more productive at work, and the effect is especially pronounced for women.

A study claims that having one or more children can makes someone a better work in the early and latter stages of their career.

It was found that mothers with at least two children perform the best.

Study by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis says having children can make people more productive at work (stock image shown). They sampled nearly 10,000 men and women. Men were found to be least productive when they had one child and most productive when they had more than one

The researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in Missouri sampled about 10,000 men and women.

They were examining the hypothesis that having children makes a person less productive.

To make their findings the researchers sent out more than 30,000 surveys, a third of which were responded to.

And the results showed that men with one child were similarly productive or less productive than their childless colleagues.

Men with more than one child, however, were more productive than those with one or no children.

For women the effect was even more pronounced; those without children were far and away less productive without a child in later life.

Those with multiple children, however, seemed to be much more productive throughout their career.

'Mothers of at least two children are, on average, more productive than mothers of only one child, and mothers in general are more productive than childless women,' they write.

'Fathers of at least two children are also more productive than fathers of one child and childless men.'

The Washington Post notes that the authors were examining a narrow group of men and women, in this case somewhat 'privileged' economists.

However, the age of children was also important. There was a 15 to 17 per cent drop in productivity for women with young kids.

But once the children had grown up, it seemed productivity levels would increase. 

The results showed that men (left graph) with one child were similarly productive or less productive than their childless colleagues. Men with more than one child, however, were more productive than those with one or no children. For women (right graph) the effect was even more pronounced