ABSTRACT

Married women are, as a class, treated less favourably on the unemployment insurance scheme than the majority of applicants. They do not automatically qualify for benefit by merely satisfying the usual statutory conditions, but have in addition to show an actual employment record since marriage, or that they have reasonable expectations of obtaining insurable employment, or that their chance of obtaining insurable employment has not been reduced by marriage. The Anomalies Act, under which the Married Women Order was made, was passed in 1931, and was primarily an economy measure, which arose, as Mr. Maxton put it at the time, out of the exigencies of the parliamentary situation. The treatment of married women under the Anomalies Act was reviewed in both the final reports of the Royal Commission. The Minority were more critical than the Majority and were unable to see how such regulations could be "reconciled with compulsory insurance against unemployment".