Marriage bar

Last updated

A marriage bar is the practice of restricting the employment of married women. [1] Common in English-speaking countries from the late 19th century to the 1970s, the practice often called for the termination of the employment of a woman on her marriage, especially in teaching and clerical occupations. [2] Further, widowed women with children were still considered to be married at times, preventing them from being hired, as well. [3] [4] [5]

Contents

The practice lacked an economic justification, and its rigid application was often disruptive to workplaces. However, marriage bars were widely relaxed in wartime due to an increase in the demand for labor. Research carried out by Claudia Goldin to explore their determinants using firm-level data from 1931 and 1940, find out that they are associated with promotion from within, tenure-based salaries, and other modern personnel practices. [6]

Since the 1960s, the practice has widely been regarded as employment inequality and sexual discrimination, and has been either discontinued or outlawed by anti-discrimination laws. In the Netherlands, the marriage bar was removed in 1957, in Australia it was removed in 1966, and in Ireland it was removed in 1973. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

Variations

While "marriage bar" is the general term used to encompass all discriminatory hiring practices against married women, two variations were commonplace for employers in the 1900s. The "hire bar" is the classification of the prevention of hiring married women. The "retain bar" is the prevention of retaining married workers. Both terms fall under the larger umbrella term. [13]

To avoid seemingly discriminatory practices, many employers utilized marriage bars to classify married women as supplementary staff, rather than permanent. This was the case, for example, at Lloyds Bank until 1949, when the bank abolished its marriage bar. [14] Classifying women as supplementary, rather than full-time staff, allowed employers to avoid paying women fixed salaries and to terminate women more easily.

History in the United Kingdom

In the UK, the marriage bar was removed for all teachers and in the BBC in 1944. [15] [16] [17] The BBC had a marriage bar between 1932 and 1944, although it was a partial ban and was not fully enforced due to the BBC's ambivalent views on the policy. [18] Lloyds Bank utilized a marriage bar to classify married women as supplementary staff rather than permanent until 1949, when the bank abolished its marriage bar. [14]

Several other jobs in the UK had marriage bars until sometime in the 1970s, for example the British Geological Survey until 1975. [19] The marriage bar prohibited married women from joining the civil service. It was abolished in 1946 for the Home Civil Service and in 1973 for the Foreign Service; until then women were required to resign when they married. [20] Having a marriage bar was made illegal throughout the UK by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

History in the United States

The practice of marriage bars arose in the United States in the late 1800s. Marriage bars were often seen in the teaching and clerical industries. While many women hid their marital status in efforts to keep their jobs, marriage bars were not banned by law until 1964 when Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, sex, or ethnic origin. [21]

While common throughout the United States, the marriage bar was relaxed in certain geographical areas and time periods. [3] Contrary to urban areas, rural areas often needed teachers so they were willing to hire married women. [3] Marriage bars were less strict during World War I because women were needed in the assistance of war efforts. [3] At the beginning of World War II, 87% of school boards would not hire married women and 70% would not retain a single woman who married. But in 1951, only 18% of the school boards had the "hire bar" and 10% had the "retain bar". [13]

Marriage bars generally affected educated, middle-class married women, particularly native-born white women. Their occupations were that of teaching and clerical work. Lower class women and women of color who took jobs in manufacturing, waitressing, and domestic servants were often unaffected by marriage bars. [13] Discrimination against married female teachers in the US was not terminated until 1964 with the passing of the Civil Rights Act. [3]

Justification

A 1946 article in The Spectator , a British conservative magazine, offered a few reasons for the justification of marriage bars. [22] The article said that women who were married were supported by their husbands, therefore they did not need jobs. [22] Furthermore, marriage bars provided more opportunity for those whom proponents viewed as "actually" needing employment, such as single women. [22] Another argument The Spectator makes states that unmarried women are more reliable and mobile than married women, [22] as they did not have a family or other pressing responsibilities. [22]

Marriage bars were connected to social and economic fluctuations, as well, especially after the end of World War I. Returning servicemen who wanted jobs, and afterwards the depression in the 1930s, led to the implementation of marriage bars in many professions. [23] However, marriage bars were often justified on tradition, especially in places where there was a very strong tradition of married women as caretakers. [9]

Similar practices

While not directly related to the marriage bar, certain de facto discriminatory hiring practices raised similar concerns for women as the marriage bar did in the earlier 1900s. For example,[ further explanation needed ] certain discriminatory practices against pregnant women led to the US Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexism</span> Prejudice or discrimination based on a persons sex or gender

Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to gender roles and stereotypes, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is intrinsically superior to another. Extreme sexism may foster sexual harassment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Discrimination in this context is defined as discrimination toward people based on their gender identity or their gender or sex differences. An example of this is workplace inequality. Sexism refers to violation of equal opportunities based on gender or refers to violation of equality of outcomes based on gender, also called substantive equality. Sexism may arise from social or cultural customs and norms.

In the United Kingdom, as in other countries, feminism seeks to establish political, social, and economic equality for women. The history of feminism in Britain dates to the very beginnings of feminism itself, as many of the earliest feminist writers and activists—such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Barbara Bodichon, and Lydia Becker—were British.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-discrimination law</span> Legislation designed to prevent discrimination against particular groups of people

Anti-discrimination law or non-discrimination law refers to legislation designed to prevent discrimination against particular groups of people; these groups are often referred to as protected groups or protected classes. Anti-discrimination laws vary by jurisdiction with regard to the types of discrimination that are prohibited, and also the groups that are protected by that legislation. Commonly, these types of legislation are designed to prevent discrimination in employment, housing, education, and other areas of social life, such as public accommodations. Anti-discrimination law may include protections for groups based on sex, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, mental illness or ability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, sex characteristics, religion, creed, or individual political opinions.

Pregnancy discrimination is a type of employment discrimination that occurs when expectant women are fired, not hired, or otherwise discriminated against due to their pregnancy or intention to become pregnant. Common forms of pregnancy discrimination include not being hired due to visible pregnancy or likelihood of becoming pregnant, being fired after informing an employer of one's pregnancy, being fired after maternity leave, and receiving a pay dock due to pregnancy. Pregnancy discrimination may also take the form of denying reasonable accommodations to workers based on pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. Pregnancy discrimination has also been examined to have an indirect relationship with the decline of a mother's physical and mental health. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women prohibits dismissal on the grounds of maternity or pregnancy and ensures right to maternity leave or comparable social benefits. The Maternity Protection Convention C 183 proclaims adequate protection for pregnancy as well. Though women have some protection in the United States because of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, it has not completely curbed the incidence of pregnancy discrimination. The Equal Rights Amendment could ensure more robust sex equality ensuring that women and men could both work and have children at the same time.

Employment discrimination is a form of illegal discrimination in the workplace based on legally protected characteristics. In the U.S., federal anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination by employers against employees based on age, race, gender, sex, religion, national origin, and physical or mental disability. State and local laws often protect additional characteristics such as marital status, veteran status and caregiver/familial status. Earnings differentials or occupational differentiation—where differences in pay come from differences in qualifications or responsibilities—should not be confused with employment discrimination. Discrimination can be intended and involve disparate treatment of a group or be unintended, yet create disparate impact for a group.

Disparate impact in the law of the United States refers to practices in employment, housing, and other areas that adversely affect one group of people of a protected characteristic more than another, even though rules applied by employers or landlords are formally neutral. Although the protected classes vary by statute, most federal civil rights laws consider race, color, religion, national origin, and sex to be protected characteristics, and some laws include disability status and other traits as well. Disparate impact can be justified with the normative goal of substantive equality, the equality of outcomes for groups.

Employment discrimination law in the United States derives from the common law, and is codified in numerous state, federal, and local laws. These laws prohibit discrimination based on certain characteristics or "protected categories". The United States Constitution also prohibits discrimination by federal and state governments against their public employees. Discrimination in the private sector is not directly constrained by the Constitution, but has become subject to a growing body of federal and state law, including the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Federal law prohibits discrimination in a number of areas, including recruiting, hiring, job evaluations, promotion policies, training, compensation and disciplinary action. State laws often extend protection to additional categories or employers.

Economic discrimination is discrimination based on economic factors. These factors can include job availability, wages, the prices and/or availability of goods and services, and the amount of capital investment funding available to minorities for business. This can include discrimination against workers, consumers, and minority-owned businesses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claudia Goldin</span> American economist

Claudia Dale Goldin is an American economic historian and labor economist. She is the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University. In October 2023, she was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for having advanced our understanding of women's labor market outcomes”. The third woman to win the award, she was the first woman to win the award solo.

In employment law, a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) (US), bona fide occupational requirement (BFOR) (Canada), or genuine occupational qualification (GOQ) (UK) is a quality or an attribute that employers are allowed to consider when making decisions on the hiring and retention of employees—a quality that when considered in other contexts would constitute discrimination in violation of civil rights employment law. Such qualifications must be listed in the employment offering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in the workforce</span> All women who perform some kind of job

Since the industrial revolution, participation of women in the workforce outside the home has increased in industrialized nations, with particularly large growth seen in the 20th century. Largely seen as a boon for industrial society, women in the workforce contribute to a higher national economic output as measure in GDP as well as decreasing labor costs by increasing the labor supply in a society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Equality Act 2010</span> UK law

The Equality Act 2010, often erroneously called the Equalities Act 2010, is an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed during the Brown ministry with the primary purpose of consolidating, updating and supplementing the numerous prior Acts and Regulations, that formed the basis of anti-discrimination law in mostly England, Scotland and Wales; some sections also apply to Northern Ireland. These consisted, primarily, of the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and three major statutory instruments protecting discrimination in employment on grounds of religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.

Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256 (1979), was a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision upheld the constitutionality of a state law, which granted a hiring preference to veterans over non-veterans.

Disparate treatment is one kind of unlawful discrimination in US labor law. In the United States, it means unequal behavior toward someone because of a protected characteristic under Title VII of the United States Civil Rights Act. This contrasts with disparate impact, where an employer applies a neutral rule that treats everyone equally in form, but has a disadvantageous effect on some people of a protected characteristic compared to others.

Shortly after feminist ideology started gaining popularity in the mid-19th and early 20th century in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the United States, and slowly the rest of the world, the movement begun affecting changes to the social and political life of Greece. In 1952, Greek women gained the right to vote. However, other changes did not come until a few decades later, as with, for example, the introduction of sweeping changes in family law in 1983. Greece signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and ratified it in 1983.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Executive Order 11375</span> Amending Executive Order No. 11246 of September 24, 1965, Relating to Equal Employment Opportunity

Executive Order 11375, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on October 13, 1967, banned discrimination on the basis of sex in hiring and employment in both the United States federal workforce and on the part of government contractors.

The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) was created in 1941 in the United States to implement Executive Order 8802 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt "banning discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and companies engaged in war-related work." That was shortly before the United States entered World War II. The executive order also required federal vocational and training programs to be administered without discrimination. Established in the Office of Production Management, the FEPC was intended to help African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in home front industries during World War II. In practice, especially in its later years, the committee also tried to open up more skilled jobs in industry to minorities, who had often been restricted to lowest-level work. The FEPC appeared to have contributed to substantial economic improvements among black men during the 1940s by helping them gain entry to more skilled and higher-paying positions in defense-related industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gender pay gap</span> Average difference in remuneration amounts between men and women

The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally found to be paid less than men. There are two distinct numbers regarding the pay gap: non-adjusted versus adjusted pay gap. The latter typically takes into account differences in hours worked, occupations chosen, education and job experience. In other words, the adjusted values represent how much women and men make for the same work, while the non-adjusted values represent how much the average man and woman make in total. In the United States, for example, the non-adjusted average woman's annual salary is 79–83% of the average man's salary, compared to 95–99% for the adjusted average salary.

In World War II, many working-age men were drafted into the armed forces to fight abroad. During this time, women were drafted in to take their places in factories and construction. When WWII ended, most men came home; while many were unable or unwilling to return to their old jobs, there was not the same urgency for women to be in the workplace. As such, society had to deal with new attitudes and expectations regarding women’s employment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in the workforce in Francoist Spain</span>

Women in the workforce in Francoist Spain faced high levels of discrimination. The end of the Spanish Civil War saw a return of traditional gender roles in the country. These were enforced by the regime through laws that regulated women's labor outside the home and the return of the Civil Code of 1889 and the former Law Procedure Criminal, which treated women as legally inferior to men. During the 1940s, women faced many obstacles to entering the workforce, including financial penalties for working outside the home, job loss upon marriage and few legally available occupations.

References

  1. ↑ "Why Many Married Women Were Banned from Working During the Great Depression". 8 November 2021.
  2. ↑ Borjas, George J. (2007). Labor Economics (4th ed.). London: McGraw-Hill. p. 402. ISBN   978-0073402826.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 ""Must a woman . . . give it all up when she marries?": The Debate over Employing Married Women as Teachers". Women's History Matters. 18 December 2014. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
  4. ↑ O'Leary, Eoin (1987). "The Irish National Teachers' Organisation and the Marriage Bar for Women National Teachers, 1933-1958". Saothar. 12: 47–52. JSTOR   23196053.
  5. ↑ "BBC - Standard Grade Bitesize History - Women and work : Revision, Page 3". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
  6. ↑ Goldin, Claudia (1988). "Marriage Bars: Discrimination Against Married Women Workers, 1920s to 1950s". Working Paper Series. doi: 10.3386/w2747 . S2CID   153507595.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ↑ The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets: Second Edition, by Tito Boeri, Jan van Ours, pp. 105
  8. ↑ "Dutch gender and LGBT-equality policy, 2013-16".
  9. 1 2 "2015 Review BPFA Report of the Netherlands Government" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-10-05.
  10. ↑ "The long, slow demise of the "marriage bar" • Inside Story". 8 December 2016.
  11. ↑ Patterson, Rachel A. "Women of Ireland: Change Toward Social and Political Equality in the 21st Century Irish Republic" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 8, 2015.
  12. ↑ Galligan (1997). ""Women and National Identity in the Republic of Ireland"": 45–53.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. 1 2 3 Goldin, Claudia (October 1988). "Marriage Bars: Discrimination Against Married Women Workers, 1920s to 1950s". NBER Working Paper No. 2747. doi: 10.3386/w2747 .
  14. 1 2 "1901-1950 - Lloyds Banking Group plc". www.lloydsbankinggroup.com.
  15. ↑ "BBC - History - Themes - Women - Teaching". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
  16. ↑ "Victorian Women Teachers". Chard Museum. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
  17. ↑ University, London Metropolitan. "Winning Equal Pay: The value of women's work". www.unionhistory.info. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
  18. ↑ Murphy, Kate (1 December 2014). "A Marriage Bar of Convenience? The BBC and Married Women's Work 1923–39" (PDF). Twentieth Century British History. 25 (4): 533–561. doi:10.1093/tcbh/hwu002. PMID   25608371.
  19. ↑ Pennington, Catherine (August 1, 2016). "The historic role of women scientists at BGS and a look at what is happening today". GeoBlogy.
  20. ↑ "Women in the UK Civil Service - History". www.civilservant.org.uk. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
  21. ↑ Houseman, Susan. "Anti-discrimination Laws". United States Department of Labor. Archived from the original on 7 September 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 "The Marriage Bar » 22 Aug 1946 » The Spectator Archive". The Spectator Archive. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
  23. ↑ "The inter-war years: 1918-1939 | Striking Women". www.striking-women.org.

Further information

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.