To want to settle a generation gap argument: older (female) relative is saying women had to give up work when they got married?

I was talking to my MIL and DD2 about this thread last night. DD was fascinated by it.

MIL told me a story about her Aunt. She worked in and office where they collected rents. There were three collectors who were paid a set wage, but if they collected a certain number of rents there was a bonus pot which was £3 - so basically if they hit their target they got an extra £1 each, which was a decent amount back then.

There was MIL's Aunt, a widowed woman who had no children and then a man doing the collecting job. When the man got married the bosses announced that they were going to stop the bonus pot because they felt they should just pay the man the extra £3 as he would now have extra responsibilities.

This was despite the fact he was already getting paid more anyway!

My DD (she's 19) was horrified and we ended up having a wonderful chat about it all in way more depth than we ever have before so I'm so grateful for the conversation.

Although MIL isn't quite so chuffed because DD3 (8 yo) joined the conversation and asked MIL if she remembered Queen Victoria and if it was exciting when electricity was invented

[quote Fireflygal]@RaraRachael, that was the mindset.

I'm glad this is discussed as even when I went on Mat Leave in the 90s it was assumed by my manager I would not return to work. Paid leave was legally only 90% of your salary for 6 weeks, then SMP.

At that stage the senior men were of a generation where their mothers and wives did not work so they assumed younger women would be the same. Within a few years it has started to change but it is still very recent history.[/quote]
And £42.25 a week Maternity Allowance if you hadn't been working there for two years by the 26th week of pregnancy. Claimable for a maximum period of 14 weeks in all, with a set number of these to be paid after the baby was born - if baby came early, you'd lose whatever portion of the prebirth entitlement remained and if baby came late, it would run out before you were technically fit/legal to go back to work.

How on earth I survived on £42.25 a week, I have no idea.

I can going to the bank with my mother when I was about 4 or 5. At that time only men were at the front desks dealing with clients, the women were in rows of desks behind and Mum said that was the sort of job she would like me to do when I was grown up. I know why she said it, It was a respectable, clean occupation where you were expected to look well turned out. I didn't end up in a bank; I was the first family member to get a degree and went into teaching.

Depends on the woman’s profession I suppose. My family had teachers in it. On marriage the women all stopped work. It was very sad for them to have to stop, I know because they told me. But they knew they had to leave the teaching jobs that there were for women, for the unmarried women to enable them to support themselves.

@RaraRachael, that was the mindset.

I'm glad this is discussed as even when I went on Mat Leave in the 90s it was assumed by my manager I would not return to work. Paid leave was legally only 90% of your salary for 6 weeks, then SMP.

At that stage the senior men were of a generation where their mothers and wives did not work so they assumed younger women would be the same. Within a few years it has started to change but it is still very recent history.

Just be glad it wasn’t bound feet on top of being barred from working.

We just have the Cinderella procedure instead. Women throughout history have mutated their body for fashion and the modern western woman is no different.

In 1974 my MiL was incredulous that I was paid the same as a male teacher.
Her comment was "But he might have a wife and family to keep"

My grandparents got married in the late 1940s and my grandmother carried on working until she had her first child. She then went back to work when her youngest was about 3/4, in the 1960s. She was a secretary and they managed better financially if she worked than if she didn’t.

My ex in-laws married the same year as my parents in the 1970s and while my mother carried on nursing long after she’d got married my ex MIL handed in her notice at work before her wedding day, while she was still in engaged and has always been a housewife.

I think it really depended on the job itself and the couple and their expectations.

My MIL had to give up her job in a bank when she got married in the 60s - he also worked in the same bank.

My former neighbour worked two full-time jobs back in the '60s. This was ,when female wages in her industry were five-eighths of what the men were paid. (Australia) She couldn't qualify for a mortgage on what the first job paid, so did a second job at night -- and the boring chauvinist bank manager still refused her a loan! She finally found a bank that would give her a loan, but they wanted a male guarantor to sign. Anne said "I am university educated and I work two full-time jobs. Do you seriously think I am less competent than a man?" She got her mortgage and quite quickly paid off her flat, but honestly, what a shitfight.

I had married teachers in the 1970s. I think going back a bit well before that it was pregnancy that made some teachers be forced to leave. My eacher mother in NE England taught before and after her marriage (married `1953). They had no children until 1961 as I said above and lived on her wage to an extent whilst my father qualified first as a doctor - 5 years and then specialised and did exams in psychiatry and until he got a consultant post and they could buy their house. So my mother taught for eight years after marriage but as she had no children there was no issue about her having to leave. In 1961 she chose to give up work as far as I know rather than was forced to do so. I was too young in the 60s to know if teachers were married and am bad at names but in 1971 when I changed schools for secondary I definitely remember quite a few teachers married with children eg my music teacher was divorced with children, my geography teacher was married with children (and an active environmentalist - all those 1970s demonstrations), my German teacher was married with grown up children etc etc. in fact more were married than not. My female Head was a spinster with no children but the female deputy head was married with children.

Anyway it was definitely a rule for some a while back. I have my grandfather's scrap book of his articles etc and one in the 1920s after the crash was advising the local authority to give jobs to male doctors over female ones because the men had a family to keep and it was a big debate at the local council then (he was a councillor and JP in Bishop Auckland)

My mum lost her job (teacher) in 1971, when she got married.

Where was this? Many of the women teachers in my secondary school were married at the time.

My mum lost her job (teacher) in 1971, when she got married.

Should probably add, one grandmother was a teacher, the other a bookkeeper in a factory.

Both my grandmothers, married in the 1950s, continued working until the 1990s

This also raised the school leaving age to 15 and was implemented in 1947. not sure this applied in Scotland, all but a few of my relatives of parents generation (born ‘40’s and ‘50’s and ‘60’s - big catholic families I have an aunt and an uncle who are closer in age to me than to my parents their siblings) left school at 14 inc both parents.

I’ve just googled this and, apparently, Scotland did not officially raise the school leaving age to 15 in 1947, though many pupils did choose to stay on. However, Scotland did raise it to 16 in 1973 in line with England & Wales so everyone born from 1958 should have stayed to 16. But not quite, depending on their birthday, children can leave school younger in Scotland; for September birthdays, a whole year earlier; for October to February birthdays, 2 terms earlier.

Sorry, HoppingPavlova, you are making that up. In 1964, the majority of employers did not have such a rule. It certainly wasn’t the case for most of the civil service, local government or teaching. Some employers (seems to be mostly banks) would have had such a rule and we can’t doubt the aunt was affected by it so, yes, it is very unkind to ridicule her. Though reading the rest of OP’s post, they sound quite well off, so there would have been no incentive to look for other work or, indeed, work when the children were older.

I do have one good friend who co-incidentally, married in 1964 and worked for the Inland Revenue from. 16 to 60. I thought she would have had some time out when her girls were born in the 70s but she didn’t as her mother provided childcare. This even happened in the backward north as they lived in Greater Manchester.

I think you are cruel to ridicule/doubt your aunt as it was indeed a thing. Depended on the employer though but the majority did have a rule that prohibited married women from working. Women didn’t need to hand in a resignation, a farewell was organised and they were booted out. That was the case in all Govnt jobs, banking (where they were tellers or receptionists) and most other major employers. You’d think you’d have a bit of sympathy for your aunt!

My mum married in '63. She did continue working after she married, she was in England in a clerical job, mainly filing, typing and basic finance, seen as women's work at that stage. As soon as children arrived the ladies were expected to leave.
My mum had gynae issues which the GP ignored, telling her instead that she would not be able to conceive whilst doing a full time job as it was too much for her.

She did eventually get pregnant in 1970, and duly quit work to raise a child.

My Granny was born in 1921 and married in 1941. She was ‘in service’ in a big house, and had to give up work when she got married. She then worked in a munitions factory for a while before she had my mum’s eldest sibling.
My mum and dad got married in 1972, and I was born in 1975. Although she continued working when she got married, she only had the option of 6 weeks maternity leave, or resigning. She was a school teacher.

Covid pandemic has also decreased the numbers of working females due to sudden home educating and heavily increased caring responsibilities.

Yes it was the norm to give up work. I also know someone of the same era who couldn’t get a mortgage because she was a woman. She approached several banks but got the same result.

My mum had to give up work when she got married in the late 70s / early 80s. She was in a male dominated field, faced a lot of discrimination, and there was no childcare available. No explicit ban on married women, but practicalities made it impossible. She never went back to that profession.

Labour market participation by women rose dramatically over the last 50+ years. In most western countries that rise has largely been down to married women's increased participation. Cant find freely available data for the UK online, but the US's similar history is charted nicely here:
ourworldindata.org/female-labor-supply

From ONS
“The employment patterns of women in the UK have changed significantly. For instance, according to the 1911 Census, about 28% of all women in England and Wales worked in domestic service.

Women’s employment changed significantly during the two world wars, and they played vital roles in war-related industries like the production of ammunition. While 23.6% of women were employed in 1914 (Anitha and Pearson, 2013), this increased to 36% in 1918. At the peak of World War 2, up to 90% of single women aged 18 to 40 years were engaged in national service activities. Therefore, the world wars transformed the structure of the labour market, creating opportunities for women in sectors that were formerly dominated by male employment.

Outside periods of war, women’s position in the labour market was more marginal. A combination of explicit rules and social norms meant that women faced limited opportunities to work, and where work was available it was often less well paid.

Since World War 2, the position of women in the labour market has changed radically. Industrial changes, incremental improvements in legislation and shifting social attitudes have all contributed to a significant increase in female participation in the labour market. Table 1 shows the number of women aged 16 years and over who were engaged in economic activity between 1951 and 2018 (in 10-year averages). It shows that female economic activity increased by nearly 2.5 times over the period 1951 to 2018.”

“We can learn more about women’s labour market participation by comparing female and male participation rates over time. Figure 3 shows a comparison of the participation rates between 1971 and 2018. The participation of women increased steadily over time, from 55.5% in 1972 to 74.2% in 2018. Although male participation remained higher, it fell from a high of 94.9% in 1971 to 83.7% in 2018.”

The above is all work, both FT and PT,

“The share of full-time employment taken by women has increased over time from 29.0% in 1984 to 37.6% in 2018. Legislative and cultural change are likely to be factors here, just as they contributed to overall rises in employment.

Historically, women have dominated part-time employment. In 1984, they accounted for 87.3% of part-time workers. While still in the majority, that proportion fell to 73.3% in 2018. Several factors explain the fall, including:

a rise in the age of women having their first child
an increase in the population (and especially that of younger women in the workforce)
the introduction of childcare vouchers and other legislative changes that facilitate mothers’ working on a full-time basis”