ABSTRACT
This chapter, focusing on the period between 1945 and 1975 explores the impact of the view that women were economically dependent on men in two related areas: firstly, immigration policy and the role of indigenous women in the labour market, and secondly, male and female migrants in the British labour market. During this period when officials, employers and trade union leaders spoke of a worker, they had in mind a very specific type: a skilled white British-born man. They endowed him with characteristics of their ideal labour source: strong, skilled, hard-working — either a professional or, more commonly, skilled manual labourer, not too militant and unencumbered by any personal baggage (such as childcare) that could prevent his long tenure in a job or his working long hours. Nonetheless the labour shortage of over a million workers in 1946 meant that alternate sources of labour beyond this ideal had to be found. However, while the economy needed labour, policymakers did not necessarily want permanent workers — which to them meant long-term, skilled, white male labour — but rather a reserve workforce: lower-skilled, lowerpaid auxiliaries useful in time of need but easily disposed of in a downturn.
