(4a) Changing living standards Flashcards
What were jobs like?
What were they in?
New jobs because of the government control of Industry. Jobs were in munitions factories and good wages could be demanded because of the power of Unions during the War.
Did any workers go on strike?
What did the government do in response?
The Coal Miners Strike of 1944)
the government had no solution but to meet their demands due to the immediate necessity of fighting and winning the war.
What was Pay like during the war?
Therefore, average pay for the British worker increased during the war.
What effect did rationing have?
Rationing had an immediate effect on diet and actually helped improve the standard of living for most - particularly in poorer areas of the country - due to the fact that the government would supplement the little food there was available with vitamins and minerals.
What impact did rationing have?
The impact of rationing was perhaps best seen by the fact that there was less child death and the longer-term impact of this was possibly the post-war baby boom.
How many births was there after WW2?
In Britain the period after WW2 saw the birth of 1million per year compared to 700,000 - 800,000 during the 1930s.
What effect did the war have on housing?
The immediate effect of the war was devastating on city centres, as people lost their homes and their livelihoods.
What were the long term effects of housing after WW2?
The longer, post-war effect was that the bombing of places like Coventry, Portsmouth and London gave Architects the opportunity to develop more modern town plans.
They followed the Tudor-Walters Report which emphasised space efficiency and the importance of electrified homes that would withstand over time.
What was the Tudor-Walters Report?
Much of this report had been what the “home fit for heroes” initiative after WW1 had hoped to achieve - it took WW2 for it to be realised.
What is Austerity?
Austerity is when the government is receiving more in tax than it is spending
Why did living standards not raise during the years 1945-51?
The Labour government had to maintain Austerity because it made commitments to the building of a Welfare State while at the same time Britain was pretty much bankrupted by the war. T
he UK had $4 billion of debt to America, now the lend lease agreement was over - it needed to start being paid back
Where was there not enough investment?
There was not enough sensible investment in a peacetime economy because spending on soldiers abroad (in places like Korea) needed to continue.
What did not enough investment lead to?
Therefore, there was an underinvestment in manufacturing and Britain could not build up a competitive industry, relative to manufacturing booms that were taking place in countries like Germany and Japan.
What did rationing divert people from?
People were diverted from consumerism because of continued rationing.
When did rationing end?
What did the Daily mail refer to it as?
Many foods remained rationed until 1951, when Attlee’s Labour introduced bread rationing between 1946-48 the Daily Mail referred to this as the “most unpopular policy in the history of the British isles”.
What did pressure on manufacturing and design lead to?
the drive for simple and cheap homes led the government to build prefabricated housing which included wooden walls and flat roofs.
What began to appear after 1951?
After 1951 the concept of “blocks of flats” began to appear: The Lansbury Park estate in Poplar being the first.
What was passed in 1946?
New Towns Act of 1946
Why was the New Towns Act of 1946 important?
Was important for raising living standards through housing as it created fourteen new towns with the specific purpose to relieve overcrowding.
What was the impact of the New Towns Act of 1946?
The impact of this was that new towns like Stevenage, Aylesbury and Basingstoke were designed using modern architecture and modern planning. This changed lives for hundreds of working-class families who before the war had had to live in slum housing.
What did the New Towns Act along with changes in welfare and education help?
They helped address some of the structural unfairness that had existed in Britain for a long time.
What % of people involved in the manufacturing of light, electrical appliances were unemployed in 1932?
12%
How much did the increasing of buying electric cookers and vacuums increase by?
What caused this?
This was supported by a consumer boom;
there was a 300% increase in the purchasing of electric cookers and a 100% increase in the purchasing of vacuums in the 1930s
Who was housing boom enjoyed by?
The housing boom was mainly enjoyed by those who worked in newer industries and this was evidenced by the difference in price in a house in London compared to other areas of the country.
What was the impact of the housing boom?
The impact of this over time was that the gap between “rich and poor” areas of the country only got worse, because if you were in the south or the midlands the value of your asset was likely to increase.
What % of people involved in Shipbuilding were unemployed in 1932?
Why?
up to 70%
This was largely due to the economic policy of protectionism and reattaching Britain to the Gold Standard in 1925,
How did reattaching Britain to the Gold Standard in 1925 effect exports?
which had limited the attractiveness of Britain’s goods as exports to the rest of the world. (You don’t need ships, if you don’t export).
What was unemployment like in London compared to Wales at the height of the depression?
11% were unemployed in London and 40% in Wales
What did it take for the government to see the regional inequality?
this was not even identified by the government at the time and it took the Beveridge Report, published in 1942, to begin a conversation about how to use the powers of the government to balance out these regional differences in hardship.
What was healthcare like in the 1930’s?
What had started to happen?
Healthcare provision was not centralised.
By the 1930s, a conversation was ongoing about the need for a nationalised healthcare system - but this was not in place yet.
What did the quality of your healthcare rely on?
therefore the quality of your care - and your education on matters like diet and hygiene - was variable and largely dependent on the area of the country that you lived in.
How did threats from diseases change after 1921?
Threats from horrible diseases like TB declined after 1921 when local areas were forced to provide hospital based care, free, for people suffering from it. TB cases went down every year from 1920 to 1938.
