The 1907 Harvester decision established a minimum wage for male workers deemed to be fair and reasonable “for himself and his family”. Today the minimum wage is set for a single person with state support for families with young children, and effectively an expectation that in those couple families with older children the partner will take up employment in the paid workforce.

 

This seminar considers the development of the minimum wage, along with the tax and transfer system, and changing patterns of women’s engagement in the paid workforce. It is both historical and quantitative and addresses the interaction of these and other elements of Australian institutions.

 

The rationale for the Harvester decision, while sound for the time, began to wither with the development of concepts of state intervention in transfer payments, and as changes in domestic technology and the labour market resulted in increasing numbers of married women entering the paid workforce. This transition took over half a century and revealed a number of tensions. Even after the need for state intervention was recognised there was little coherence or continuity in government policy making. Driven by increasing productivity the value of the minimum wage increased strongly, although much of the potential gain was traded off for better working conditions, and while the minimum wage was conceived of under policies of ‘New Protection’, tariffs played little role in its evolution.