no evidence that Congress intended Title VII to work such a change. Nor does Manhart support such a sweeping reading of this statute. That case expressly recognized the limited reach of its holding—a limitation grounded in the legislative history of Title VII and the inapplicability of Title VII's policies to the insurance industry.

A

We were careful in Manhart to make clear that the question before us was narrow. We stated: "All that is at issue today is a requirement that men and women make unequal contributions to an employer-operated pension fund." 435 U. S., at 717 (emphasis added). And our holding was limited expressly to the precise issue before us. We stated that "[a]lthough we conclude that the Department's practice violated Title VII, we do not suggest that the statute was intended to revolutionize the insurance and pension industries." Ibid.

The Court in Manhart had good reason for recognizing the narrow reach of Title VII in the particular area of the insurance industry. Congress has chosen to leave the primary responsibility for regulating the insurance industry to the respective States. See McCarran-Ferguson Act, 59 Stat. 33, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1011 et seq. This Act reflects the

"When this Court held for the first time that the Federal Government had the power to regulate the business of insurance, see United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn., 322 U. S. 533 (1944) (holding the antitrust laws applicable to the business of insurance), Congress responded by passing the McCarran-Ferguson Act. As initially proposed, the Act had a narrow focus. It would have provided only: ""That nothing contained in the Act of July 2, 1890, as amended, known as the Sherman Act, or the Act of October 15, 1914, as amended, known as the Clayton Act, shall be construed to apply to the business of insurance or to acts in the conduct of that business or in any wise to impair the regulation of that business by the several States.'" S. Rep. No. 1112, 78th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 1, p. 2 (1944) (quoting proposed Act). This narrow version, however, was not accepted. Congress subsequently proposed and adopted a much broader bill. It recognized, as it previously had, the need to accommodate federal antitrust

long-held view that the "continued regulation. . . by the several States of the business of insurance is in the public interest." 15 U. S. C. §1011; see SEC v. National Securities, Inc., 393 U. S. 453, 458-459 (1969). Given the consistent policy of entrusting insurance regulation to the States, the majority is not justified in assuming that Congress intended in 1964 to require the industry to change longstanding actuarial methods, approved over decades by state insurance commissions.6

laws and state regulation of insurance. See H. R. Rep. No. 143, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1945). But it also recognized that the decision in South-Eastern Underwriters Assn. had raised questions as to the general validity of state laws governing the business of insurance. Some insurance carriers were reluctant to comply with state regulatory authority, fearing liability for their actions. See H. R. Rep. No. 143, at 2. gress thus enacted broad legislation "so that the several States may know that the Congress desires to protect the continued regulation . . . of the business of insurance by the several States." Ibid.

The McCarran-Ferguson Act, as adopted, accordingly commits the regulation of the insurance industry presumptively to the States. The introduction to the Act provides that "silence on the part of the Congress shall not be construed to impose any barrier to the regulation or taxation of [the] business [of insurance] by the several States." 15 U. S. C. § 1011. Section 2(b) of the Act further provides: "No Act of Congress shall be construed to invalidate, impair, or supersede any law enacted by any State for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance... unless such Act specifically relates to the business of insurance." 15 U. S. C. § 1012(b).

Most state laws regulating insurance and annuities explicitly proscribe "unfair discrimination between individuals in the same class." Bailey, Hutchinson, & Narber, The Regulatory Challenge to Life Insurance Classification, 25 Drake L. Rev. 779, 783 (1976) (emphasis omitted). Arizona insurance law similarly provides that there shall be "[no] unfair discrimination between individuals of the same class." Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 20-448 (Supp. 1982-1983). Most States, including Arizona, have determined that the use of actuarially sound, sex-based mortality tables comports with this state definition of discrimination. Given the provision of the McCarran-Ferguson Act that Congress intends to supersede state insurance regulation only when it enacts laws that "specifically relat[e] to the business of insurance," see n. 5, supra, the majority offers no satisfactory

Nothing in the language of Title VII supports this preemption of state jurisdiction. Nor has the majority identified any evidence in the legislative history that Congress con

reason for concluding that Congress intended Title VII to pre-empt this important area of state regulation.

The majority states that the McCarran-Ferguson Act is not relevant because the petitioners did not raise the issue in their brief. See ante, at 1087-1088, n. 17 (MARSHALL, J., concurring in judgment in part). This misses the point. The question presented is whether Congress intended Title VII to prevent employers from offering their employees-pursuant to state law actuarially sound, sex-based annuities. The McCarranFerguson Act is explicitly relevant to determining congressional intent. It provides that courts should not presume that Congress intended to supersede state regulation of insurance unless the Act in question "specifically relates to the business of insurance." See n. 5, supra. It therefore is necessary to consider the applicability of the McCarran-Ferguson Act in determining Congress' intent in Title VII. This presents two questions: whether the action at issue under Title VII involves the "business of insurance" and whether the application of Title VII would "invalidate, impair, or supersede" state law.

No one doubts that the determination of how risk should be spread among classes of insureds is an integral part of the "business of insurance." See Group Life & Health Ins. Co. v. Royal Drug Co., 440 U. S. 205, 213 (1979); SEC v. Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 359 U. S. 65, 73 (1959). The majority argues, nevertheless, that the McCarran-Ferguson Act is inapposite because Title VII will not supersede any state regulation. Because Title VII applies to employers rather than insurance carriers, the majority asserts that its view of Title VII will not affect the business of insurance. See ante, at 1087-1088, n. 17 (MARSHALL, J., concurring in judgment in part). This formalistic distinction ignores self-evident facts. State insurance laws, such as Arizona's, allow employers to purchase sexbased annuities for their employees. Title VII, as the majority interprets it, would prohibit employers from purchasing such annuities for their employees. It begs reality to say that a federal law that thus denies the right to do what state insurance law allows does not "invalidate, impair, or supersede" state law. Cf. SEC v. Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., supra, at 67. The majority's interpretation of Title VII-to the extent it banned the sale of actuarially sound, sex-based annuities-effectively would pre-empt state regulatory authority. In my view, the commands of the McCarran-Ferguson Act are directly relevant to determining Congress' intent in enacting Title VII.

sidered the widespread use of sex-based mortality tables to be discriminatory or that it intended to modify its previous grant by the McCarran-Ferguson Act of exclusive jurisdiction to the States to regulate the terms of protection offered by insurance companies. Rather, the legislative history indicates precisely the opposite.

The only reference to this issue occurs in an explanation of the Act by Senator Humphrey during the debates on the Senate floor. He stated that it was "unmistakably clear" that Title VII did not prohibit different treatment of men and women under industrial benefit plans. See 110 Cong. Rec. 13663-13664 (1964). As we recognized in Manhart, "[alt]hough he did not address differences in employee contributions based on sex, Senator Humphrey apparently assumed that the 1964 Act would have little, if any, impact on existing pension plans." 435 U. S., at 714. This statement

'Senator Humphrey's statement was based on the adoption of the Bennett Amendment, which incorporated the affirmative defenses of the Equal Pay Act, 77 Stat. 56, 29 U. S. C. § 206(d), into Title VII. See County of Washington v. Gunther, 452 U. S. 161, 175, n. 15 (1981). Although not free from ambiguity, the legislative history of the Equal Pay Act provides ample support for Senator Humphrey's interpretation of that Act. In explaining the Equal Pay Act's affirmative defenses, the Senate Report on that statute noted that pension costs were "higher for women than men ... because of the longer life span of women." S. Rep. No. 176, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 4 (1963). It then explained that the question of additional costs associated with employing women was one "that can only be answered by an ad hoc investigation." Ibid. Thus, it concluded that where it could be shown that there were in fact higher costs for women than men, an exception to the Equal Pay Act could be permitted "similar to those. . . for a bona fide seniority system or other exception noted above." Ibid.

Even if other meanings might be drawn from the Equal Pay Act's legislative history, the crucial question is how Congress viewed the Equal Pay Act in 1964 when it incorporated it into Title VII. The only relevant legislative history that exists on this point demonstrates unmistakably that Congress perceived-with good reason-that "the 1964 Act [Title VII] would have little, if any, impact on existing pension plans." Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702, 714 (1978).

was not sufficient, as Manhart held, to preclude the application of Title VII to an employer-operated plan. See ibid. But Senator Humphrey's explanation provides strong support for Manhart's recognition that Congress intended Title VII to have only that indirect effect on the private insurance industry.

B

As neither the language of the statute nor the legislative history supports its holding, the majority is compelled to rely on its perception of the policy expressed in Title VII. The policy, of course, is broadly to proscribe discrimination in employment practices. But the statute itself focuses specifically on the individual and "precludes treatment of individuals as simply components of a racial, religious, sexual, or national class." Id., at 708. This specific focus has little relevance to the business of insurance. See id., at 724 (BLACKMUN, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Insurance and life annuities exist because it is impossible to measure accurately how long any one individual will live. Insurance companies cannot make individual determinations of life expectancy; they must consider instead the life expectancy of identifiable groups. Given a sufficiently large group of people, an insurance company can predict with considerable reliability the rate and frequency of deaths within the group based on the past mortality experience of similar groups. Title VII's concern for the effect of employment practices on the individual thus is simply inapplicable to the actuarial predictions that must be made in writing insurance and annuities.

C

The accuracy with which an insurance company predicts the rate of mortality depends on its ability to identify groups with similar mortality rates. The writing of annuities thus requires that an insurance company group individuals according to attributes that have a significant correlation with mortality. The most accurate classification system would be to