ABSTRACT
provision for the dependants of workpeople is closely related to the living wage, and is also linked with equal pay for equal work. In making wage demands workpeople claim that wages must be sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families, and yet these needs vary from workmen who have no dependants to those who have large families, and the question must be faced whether the wage system can suitably cope with such differences. Where, as for example in Australia and New Zealand, wage legislation requires the fixing of living wages, a decision has to be taken on the size of the family for which a man's wage will provide, and in practice the “standard” family for this purpose consists of man, wife, and two or three dependent children. For women workers the wage is based on the needs of women who have to provide for the whole of their requirements, but on the assumption, which is often unwarranted, that they have no dependants.
