More Married Women Returning To Work

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30948, 3 January 1966, Page 2

More Married Women Returning To Work

[By

ROSEMARY HIRST]

One of the new students at a teachers’ training college just outside London will be a housewife, aged 36, with two schoolchildren, aged seven and five. With the whole-hearted support of her husband, she has enrolled for the full three-year course.

Mrs J. Davies, who lives at Eltham, Kent, is one of many thousands of married women who find themselves with 30 good years of work-life before them and who do not intend to waste their abilities or their opportunities.

When she is qualified, she plans to teach in an area in south-east London, near her home, scheduled for intensive housing development

“The next three years are not going to be easy,” she said. “Some evenings I mayhave to stay for lectures until 6 p.m„ and I shall certainly have to pay a neighbour to look after the children.”

Why is Mrs Davies prepared to spend three years’ time and money to qualify (for although educational grants can be obtained from her local authority, her personal and domestic expenses will rise), to take her first teaching job when she is nearly 40? Why do married women of any age want to go back to paid work outside the home? Is it merely a matter of money?

In Mrs Davies’s case, certainly not. Many women of her generation left school, as she did, at the end of the Second World War and had to take any job that offered, irrespective of prospects. Now they have the opportunities they want, at the same time as they are free to take them.

Mrs Davies said: “It wouldn’t be right not to train to earn my living, now that I can do it.”

A 45-year-old factory operative said the same thing in different words. “Married women who don’t work if they can are just lazy, don’t you think? What are they at all day long, just doing bits of housework when they like?”

A young researcher explained (with surprise that the question should have been asked), that she enjoyed the stimulus of working as a member of an intelligent community. Many women have graduated and found jobs in areas where universities and industries developed side by side, such as Durham and Teesside in the north of England, and Liverpool in the northwest. Survey Made A recent survey reported that, of reasons given by women for returning to work after a break One-third said it was interest in their work or in things outside the home. A further quarter combined interest with money. Only one-sixth said that money was the only incentive. Women in industry speak most of the congenial companionship on the factory floor. They would miss their friends if they did not work. Nearly all say they are happier, less irritable, and better company for their husbands. AH appreciate the higher living standard a double income brings.

The International Labour Conference has called the increasingly high employment of married women “a new element in the situation in the developed countries with a comparatively high stand-

ard of living, and in the countries seeking to develop their resources and to raise the standard of living of their peoples.” , 1. Here is an example of the ; workings of the new element! and the double income. Lynn and Ray Norris live in the Surrey village of East Molesey, 12 miles from London. She is 22, a shorthand-typist. He is a printer, aged 26. They were engaged for three years and saved enough to pay a deposit on their house. They have been married a year, have completely redecorated and furnished the house, and have already saved enough to buy a small car. Three weeks after the wedding, Lynn found herself a local job. Her rooms now have fitted carpets throughout She has television, radio, an electric iron, an electric mixer, a washing machine and a spin-drier. The couple have reached a standard of living in four years which it took their parents half a working life to achieve. “We couldn’t possibly have done it if I had not been working,” she said. “Our Christmas presents last year came from my wage packet But I like it this way.” The young married women do like it this way. Offices all over Britain are largely staffed by girls like Lynn. A 75 per cent married secretarial staff is quite usual. When husband and wife are both working they pay less income tax than they would as two single persons, provided their joint earned incomes do not exceed £5OOO a year. The wife receives ! allowances of a similar value j to those received by a single woman and the husband receives greater allowances . than if he were single. A married woman teacher,

for example, earning £B6O a year, would pay about £l4O in income tax (unless her husband’s earnings were very high), leaving her with £720 after tax, but before paying national insurance. If she worked halftime for £430. her tax would amount to £25 only.

However, a married couple, where the wife goes out to work, cannot claim relief for a housekeeper or domestic help. The acute shortage of domestic help is one of the factors which continue to tell against the married woman worker. In 1963 there were 217,000 women in private domestic service in Britain (compared with 1,332,000 domestics and 140,000 charwomen in 1931). Most of today’s resident servants are from Ireland, or from Europe as “au pair” to learn English or to work as a “mother’s help.” An “au pair” girl receives weekly pocket money of £2 to £2 10s plus her keep, but is only required to give light assistance, as would any other member of the family.

As a “mother’s help” a young girl would be paid up to about £4 a week, plus keep and insurance. Trained and experienced nannies are paid £lO and more a week, plus keep and insurance. A casual domestic help is paid 5s to 7s 6d an hour, plus a contribution towards insurance.

With regard to her own insurance, a married woman over 18, working for an employer other than her husband, can choose whether to pay contributions to qualify for benefit on her own account, or rely on her husband’s cover for a smaller range of benefits, in which case she only pays 5d a week.

The second adverse factor is the still unsettled matter of equal pay. Professional women, including those in the civil service, enjoy equal pay with men, but in industry and commerce there is still a difference.