‘Waking up to the Fact that there are any Unemployed’: Women, Unemployment and the Domestic Solution in Britain, 1918–1939

Abstract

This article examines unemployment among married women within the context of evolving government policy rather than from a gender or feminist perspective. It establishes how, during the inter-war years, government policy towards women's unemployment developed in line with the ideas of female-dominated voluntary bodies and was only of fringe interest to the state. In particular, it stresses that a small number of middle-class women shaped official attitudes towards unemployed women through their activities in voluntary bodies, particularly the Central Committee on Women's Training and Employment, as well as their own rise in public service. This group operated within an environment that accepted women to be dispensable as a source of labour and where many female activists felt that women on unemployment benefit should train to be domestic servants, despite the fact that many of those women did not normally want domestic work because it was badly paid, of low status and uninsured. During the inter-war years governments relied heavily upon voluntary bodies to 'fill the gaps' in state welfare provision in their fringe areas of interest such as women's unemployment. In this instance, however, the voluntary bodies failed to assess or tackle the problem effectively.

Review of periodical literature published in 2003

“…In his presidential address, Hafter examines some of the fundamental issues at play in workers’ relationship with technological advance and he urges us to devote more attention to the ways in which workers’ efforts were a key determinant of the success or failure of technological advance. The experience of women workers in Britain during the interwar years and the Second World War has been the subject of articles by Bruley, Laybourn, and S. Todd.…”

“…Bruley uses the diaries of two women to examine the operation of dilution arrangements during the Second World War and the ways in which female workers secured welfare improvements in the factories. Laybourn discusses the casual way in which governments of all parties treated the issue of female unemployment during the interwar years. He shows that when governments devolved responsibility for female employment to voluntary bodies, such as the National Council of Social Services, these bodies were often more interested in improving the housewifery skills of women rather than finding employment for them.…”