Relieving the Dole The exclusion of married women from unemployment
benefit is making its effects visible in the Ministry of Labour's weekly returns. The number of totally unem- ployed persons on November 16th as compared with November 9th fell by 23,782, but the reduction in women out of employment was 24,552, there being a slight increase in adult male unemployment. The bulk of the reduction in women in the wriolly unemployed list is due to the removal from it of wives who had been drawing benefit because they had been in an insured trade before marriage, in spite of the fact that they had husbands either in work or drawing benefit. and that they had themselves no intention of ever returning to industrial employment. Altogether in the few weeks since the Act rectifying these anomalies has conic into force over 71,000 married women have been disqualified. This applies only to the extended, or transitional benefit, continued after the first statutory six months, and it cannot be claimed that any harshness or injustice is involved in the new regulations. The original Unem- ployment Acts had in view men and women who wanted work and could not find it. When a married woman has ceased to want work in the industrial market there is obviously no case for granting her unemployment pay.
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