Marriage bar

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]

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]

  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. ^ ""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. ^ "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)