A family wage is a wage that is sufficient to raise a family. This contrasts with a

living wage A living wage is defined as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. This is not the same as a subsistence wage, which refers to a biological minimum, or a solidarity wage, which refers to a minimum wage tracking lab ...

, which is generally taken to mean a wage sufficient for a single individual to live on, but not necessarily sufficient to also support a family. As a stronger form of living wage, a family wage is likewise advocated by proponents of

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

. Family wage campaign was aiming to maintain the traditional family structure, as a concept connecting economics and family structure it is one of the examples of how economic structure of family, which is a subject of the field

family economics Family economics applies economic concepts such as production, division of labor, distribution, and decision making to the family. It is used to explain outcomes unique to family—such as marriage, the decision to have children, fertility, po ...

, affects overall economy beyond the family. The notion of a family wage traditionally proposes a household consisting of a nuclear family with a single wage-earner, namely the man, with the wife staying home and raising the children, and thus the premise that the man's wage should support his wife and their children. This is in contrast to a multi-generation household, consisting also of the previous generation, or to single parent households or dual-earners. With the entry of women into the paid labor force, this model has been complicated, with some households having two wage earners, some one, and others none; see

feminist movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such ...

for context and discussion.

History

United States

The term "family wage jobs" has occasional contemporary use in American political rhetoric and is most associated with Catholic intellectuals, in the Catholic social teaching tradition, such as

Douglas Kmiec Douglas William Kmiec (; born September 24, 1951) is an American legal scholar, author, and former U.S. ambassador. He is the Caruso Family Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University School of Law. Kmiec came to prominence ...

and

Allan C. Carlson Allan C. Carlson (born 1949 in Des Moines, Iowa) is a scholar and former professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. He is the President Emeritus of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, former director of the ...

. The following is a table with minimum wage vs family wage in the US for families of 4 (2 parents and 2 children) with one of the parents working in 2016:

Charles Krauthammer Charles Krauthammer (; March 13, 1950 – June 21, 2018) was an American political columnist. A moderate liberal who turned independent conservative as a political pundit, Krauthammer won the Pulitzer Prize for his columns in ''The Washingt ...

has said there should be a two-tiered system where breadwinners have a higher minimum wage.

Israel

A family wage – a basic wage, with a supplement by family size, was adopted by the dominant trade union in the

British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to: * Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. * Mandatory P ...

(now the state of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

), Histadrut, in 1923, and remained policy for a decade, but implementation was limited.

Portugal

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, a family wage was advocated by Francisco Rolão Preto.

Spain

In Spain, a family wage has been a key plank in the platform of the

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo ( en, National Confederation of Labor; CNT) is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionar ...

, an influential confederation of labor unions, in accord with the notion of "to each according to their needs".

United Kingdom

In the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, a family wage was a demand of male labour unionists at the turn of the 19th century.Oxford Dictionary of Sociology

Demographic significance

If a worker or family does not earn a family wage, they are likely to delay having children and have a smaller family, both due to delayed childbearing and due to choosing to limit number of children due to expense. This has been cited as a factor in decreasing family sizes following

urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...

and the

industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

in essays dating back to the 1751 '' Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc.'' by

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

. Further, this leads to differing fertility across income levels, with higher income households (above a family wage) not being as constrained as lower income households.

References

Oxford Dictionary of Sociology: family wage
{{refend Wages and salaries