Abstract
In this paper, using data gathered from 40 married or cohabiting couples in Hartlepool, I argue that despite challenges to the `family wage' through long-term male unemployment, growing job insecurity, increased economic activity of married women, and the demonstrable importance of their earnings for the household, a wife's role as earner or potential earner continues to be viewed as peripheral.
This is largely to be explained by an interaction between Supplementary Benefit rulings and the part-time nature of much of the demand for women's labour, such that a wife is most likely to take on, or continue in, employment where her husband is himself in work or perceived to be only temporarily unemployed. The operation of the informal sector of the economy is examined in this context, and the possible effects of proposed changes in Supplementary Benefit rulings discussed.
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