MARRIED WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 86, 13 April 1931, Page 3

MARRIED WOMEN.

IN THE CIVIL SERVICE. A WORLD SURVEY. VARIOUS VIEWPOINTS. In New South Wales the Lang Government recently decided to dismiss all married women in the Education Service whose husbands were in receipt of £5 a week or more. A ballot of 7000 women members of the Civil Service in Britain resulted in a decisive vote against the retention of Avomen_ employees after marriage. According to the "Public Service Journal," the organ of the Civil Service in New Zealand, an investigation was recently made to ascertain the viewpoint in 15 European countries, the United States and several of the British Dominions. .In the five British Dominions, for which information was available, the Education Department was the only one in which women found employment to a substantial extent; in the remaining State Services marriage was an effective I bar to the employment of women, either !by legal enactment or by practice. In the United States marriage is not a bar to employment of women either in the Federal or the State services. No special leave, however, is granted when i a child is born, but the woman. is eligible for reinstatement. The usual practice, however, is for the woman to work until she has a child. Germany in 1919 abolished* all provisions against women Civil servants. Married women in the service are entitled to ten weeks' leave on full pay when a child is born, and, if necessary, a rurther seven weeks on half pay. In Austria women Civil servants, with the exception of teachers jn certain provinces, may retain their posts after marriage, and are granted leave on pay when a child is born. There is no legal bar to women in Czecho-Slovakia, but in 1924 it was enacted that married women should be dismissed before men, where economy demanded a weeding out of the services, and considerable numbers of married women thus lost their jobs in that country. Holland imposes a definite legal bar to the employment of married women, except in the case of teachers and certain other isolated cases.

A Contrast. The article in the "Public Service Journal" goes on to §ay: "In Britain and her colonies marriage constitutes, either by legal enactment or in. fact, an effective bar to a woman's freedom to continue in the practise of her chosen profession. In Holland, the United States of America, Germany, Switzerland, and Czeeho-Slovakia, this freedom, if not absolutely denied in all cases, is in various degrees curtailed or conditioned. Over against these is to be set, in addition to Austria, a long list of countries where no marriage bar exists in theory or in fact, and in many of which special provision is made for meeting the special conditions of women Civil servants avlio become mothers. Marriage is no bar to the employment of women in the Civil Service in Italy. Nor is it a bar to the employment of women in the Civil Service in Spain or in Sweden, in Rumania or in Belgium, in Norway, or in Denmark, in Bulgaria, or in remote little Iceland, or in neighbouring and powerful France. "In America, as has been stated, most women Civil servants retain their posts after marriage. In Belgium most of them retain their posts, at least for tlie first few years. In Denmark most women Civil servants retain their posts on marriage. In France it is stated to be very rare for a woman to resign onmarriage. In Norway, it is estimated that about 50 per cent of the women retain their posts after marriage. In Sweden, retirement on marriage is most frequent among the lower paid officios.

Sweden and Prance. "Although the employment of married women Civil servants is permitted in Sweden, the Act which introduced it empowered the authorities to place on part-time work, with a corresponding reduction in salary, married women who were in charge of a household and children under 15 years of age. When children are born, married women Civil servants arc entitled to three months' leave of absence at a reduction of salary varying from one-half to two-thirds. If they are absent for more than three months they forfeit their salary entirely. "In France a woman Civil servant is granted fifteen days' special leave on marriage and if she becomes a mother one month's leave on full pay both before and after the birth of the child. If she is not fit for work at the end of that period she may obtain further leave—three months on full pay and three months on half-pay. Married women Civil servants, like their male colleagues, receive family allowances. If they resign on marriage they become entitled, like their male colleagues, on resignation, to the return of the deductions made from salary towards the cost of pensions. Belgium and Denmark. "Belgium makes provision for a period of leave varying from six weeks to two. months before and after the birth of a child. In Denmark, married women are entitled to the necessary leave at half-" pay before and after the birth of their children. They may also, on certain conditions, be put on part-time, at a correspondingly reduced salary, either permanently or for a specified period. They are not entitled to the family allowance granted to male Civil servants with dependent children.

"The provision of the Act governing the employment of Civil servants in Norway, granting a period of sick leave on full pay for at least three months

to all Civil servants, is available for women Civil servants who become mothers. "This account of the attitude of various countries, to the question of the employment of married women may be appropriately concluded on a note of optimism by recounting a recent' experience of Sweden. The removal of the marriage bar in the Civil Service was one of the first reforms secured by the women members of the Swedish Parliament. There was some opposition after the Act was passed, and the first attempt to repeal it, which was camouflaged as a motion for an inquiry into the position of married women in the Civil Service, was defeated by only a very small majority. The second effort for repeal was defeated by a much larger' majority. On the third attempt the majority against repeal was so great that it was not considered necessary to take a count."