Memoranda presented to the Royal Commission.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Population.
Date:
1950
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoranda presented to the Royal Commission. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    120/128 (page 114)
    B.—WoOMEN 10. I beg leave to submit a modified and simplified scheme for the treat- ment of contributions by women and endowments arising therefrom in sub- stitution for my previous proposals. I feel bound to recognise the force in Sir Hubert Henderson’s contention that in the case of investment incomes my previous proposals would give rise to wangling. On reflexion I feel the importance, both in equity and for the sake of winning acceptance for the project, of treating female incomes as nearly as possible on the same basis as male incomes. I feel that for the sake of this some features in my pre- vious proposal designed to reduce the inducement to women to postpone marriage or motherhood may have to be sacrificed. 11. Accordingly I make proposals as follows :— (i) Contributions at the standard rate to be levied on all income accruing to women, subject to the maximum contribution of £50 on an income of £1,000 or more, subject also to a joint maximum contribution by a married couple of £50, but the earned income of women after the end of the “ expectation period ” (*) to be subject to no contribution. (11) Endowments to be such that where the endowable family is of average size the whole of the father’s contributions recorded and expected together with the whole of the mother’s contributions recorded and expected are paid back. Gi) The expected annual contributions of the father during the remainder of his “expectation of life” are taken to be equal to his last recorded contribution (or its average in the last 3 or 5 years). The expected annual contributions of the mother in respect of investment income are taken to be equal to her last recorded contribution (or its average etc.). The expected annual contributions of the mother in respect of earned income are taken to be nil. (iv) It by no means follows from (iii) that a mother is deprived of benefit in respect of her earnings during married life. Quite the contrary. It is true that on an early assessment day no future earnings are imputed to her in advance. But as time goes on, if she does in fact earn, then these earnings are recorded and imputed, and in accordance with the revised method of computation (Appendix I) she will ultimately receive back the whole contribution on her earnings as a married woman, if her endowable family is of average size. She will, it is true, have no earnings imputed to her after the end of the “expectation period”, and that 1s the reason for the provision in (i) above that the earned income of women after the end of the “ expectation period ” be not subject to contribution. (v) By this scheme men and women are treated exactly on a par, save that (i) no earnings are imputed in advance to women after the end of the “expectation period ” and no contributions levied on such earnings, and (ii) no earnings are imputed to a woman after she has married until they actually come in. But she will not be seriously damnified thereby since all earnings eventually subject to contributions will be returned in endowment. (2) The ‘‘ expectation period ” is defined as ending in the case of parents when a child reaches the age of 18 and there are no surviving younger children, in the case of a childless man on his fifty-sixth birthday and of a childless woman on her forth-sixth. : N.B.—The ‘‘ expectation period”? must not be confused with the “* expectation of life’? which is also referred to in these notes. The “‘ expectation of life ” is the average number of years men or women live after a given year, as shown in the Life Table, but assuming that everyone there shown as dying after 65 dies on his or her sixty-sixth birthday (since that is the date when contributions cease). ‘