Good Word For Working Wives

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30882, 15 October 1965, Page 7

Good Word For Working Wives

The many married women in employment in New Zealand, who had come in for considerable criticism from some quarters, were in fact very important to the economy of the country, said Dr. J. H. Robb, of the department of social science, Victoria University of Wellington.

Speaking at a course at Templeton Hospital for social workers, Dr. Robb said that without working wives New Zealand could not maintain its present social and economic standards. The number of unmarried women of working age had declined considerably—by more than 35,000 between 1936 and 1956. At the same time, the demand for more teachers, nurses and factory workers had increased, and without married women to take those jobs, social work and production would have fallen off. Dr. Robb said that no-one had been able to demonstrate

that the children of working mothers were more delinquent than those of mothers who did not go out to work. It was a hard thing to prove one way or the other, and in addition, there were no figures available on the total number of working mothers. He said that in this and other social questions, social scientists were considerably hampered by the lack of statistics.

“Our major social problem is our ignorance of our own society,” he said.