Familial Poverty,Family Allowances,and the Normative Family Structure in Britain,1917-1945

Abstract

In 1945, the Family Allowances Act was incorporated into law. The family allowances scheme depended on the maintenance of a normative family structure and a wage system that discriminated against women. Eleanor Rathbone, along with social surveyors of the 1930s and social policy makers, recognized the family wage system as a primary cause of poverty among working families. Unfortunately, the family allowances scheme did not address the poverty caused by long-term unemployment or the absence of a male wage earner within the family structure. As a social policy solution to familial poverty, consequently, family allowances reflected both the contemporary social processes and the normative family structure to the detriment of impoverished families.