ABSTRACT
The Statutory Committee has argued that it is reasonable to look at the insurance scheme as a whole and "to treat the contributions of women in employment as available to help in securing themselves and their children against economic insecurity, if and when they marry and give up earning". But in answer to this argument it must be said that it is difficult to see why the present generation of insured women should be expected to subscribe towards the dependants' benefit of a large number of wives many of whom have never been in insurable employment. For the difference in unemployment rates was "largely, though not wholly, due to the nature of the industries in which men and women engage"; and therefore "to some extent, the argument for differentiation of premiums by risk must be one for differentiation between industries rather than between sexes".
