1942 Beveridge Report

A Brief Outline of the Social Climate existing at the time of the introduction of the Welfare State:

Just as the widespread and highly effective entry of women into the work place during the First World War contributed significantly to their eventually being granted full rights to vote, so the Second World War brought about massive welfare social policy change, with Parliament enacting a set of laws that imposed on the state responsibility to provide for all citizens an "adequate income for subsistence according to the standards adopted in the social surveys" during the "rainy days" of sickness or unemployment which caused an "interruption or loss of earning power".

In the struggle to defeat fascism, the country and politicians had learned to set aside greed. Conservative ideology had believed fervently that it was the responsibility of the individual, not the state, to provide for medical care and for needs during periods of unemployment.

Until the start of the National Health Service in 1946 the statistics for the health of the nation were frightening. Disease was common and there were few cures. One in 15 died before the age of 11 and there was no right to health care if you were ill. The National Insurance Act of 1911 had provided health care for workers but not for their dependents. Friendly societies and private insurance schemes were often too expensive and provided inadequate cover for the majority of the population.

Beveridge envisaged:

"The main feature of the Plan for Social Security is a scheme of social insurance against interruption and destruction of earning power and for special expenditure arising at birth, marriage or death. The scheme embodies six fundamental principles : flat rate of subsistence benefit ; flat rate of contribution ; unification of administrative responsibility; adequacy of benefit ; comprehensiveness ; and classification."                                                                                        Beveridge, 1942

The state funded this revolutionary social security safety net by requiring economically active people to contribute an Insurance type levy that was deducted from earnings (National Insurance Contributions).

When family allowances were introduced as part of reform the package envisaged by the Beveridge report, in 1946, it represented a huge step forward. It took children and families out of absolute poverty, freed them from disease and guaranteed them minimum standards of public health care, and bestowed a decent standard of living during "rainy days".

National Insurance established an abiding 'duty of care' which the state owed to its people, a 'compact' the state had with its citizens.

In an era when some food was rationed, when banks closed at 3.30 pm and when office workers went home earlier than blue collar workers, payment to the mother was conceived as a sensible method. Most men were still working in jobs that made it impossible to get to either the bank or the post office.

Some 98% of children were brought up by both their parents - marriage 'the norm'. A married man and wife were thought of as 'as one body' - the two became in biblical terms, one flesh.

Payment of family allowances to just one parent in such circumstances benefited men, women and all children of the marriage. Divorce was rare (1937 - 10,350, 1946 - 15,634, House of Commons research paper). The predominate reason for a child not living with both parents was the premature death of one of the parents.

Family support payments were made to both fathers (via allowances) and to mothers (via cash payments).

The centrality of both parents, however, was underlined by a man's tax allowances (for children, wife and married status) being reflected in his tax codings and thus 'take home' pay.

With millions of men returning victoriously home from the front, government policy policy made no attempt to drive all mothers of young children into the jobs market.                                                
[to be continued ....]

Since 1971, when the Divorce Reform Act 1969 became operational, over 3.5 million (3,524,614) couples have, in cumulative terms, been divorced.

Therefore, over 7.0m (7,049,228) individuals in the adult population of 40,624,000 have experienced divorce.

The 7m figure represents 17.5% of the adult population (7m/40m x 100%) and 33% of the 22.4m households; a proportion that does not reflect the high number of re-marriages that fail.