How Far Did Living Standards Improve? Flashcards
Recession and Depression: 1920s + 30s
Government Action
Working class suffered
Geddes Axe - £87 mil, £23 mil in health, welfare, and housing
Interest rates increased to 7%
Recession and Depression: 1920s + 30s
Unemployment
Rose to** 2 million** (12%)
Heavy industry suffered most
Great depression - jumped to 2.5 mil
MacDonald’s emergency measures - spending cuts, 10% to unemployment benefit, and means test (National Economy Act 1931)
Recession and Depression: 1920s + 30s
Hunger
Persistent factor
1933 survey - unemployment benefits insufficient to provide minimum diet
Working class women most likely to go hungry
Recovery: 1934-39
Production + Employment
Industrial production rose 46%
Unemployment fell from 3 mil (1932) to 1.4 mil (1939)
Increase of real wages by 19%
Recovery: 1934-39
Living Standards
Improved in some areas
Post 1933, light industry boomed
Consumer boom - 1930, 200,000 vacuums sold, 1939, 400,000 each year
Recovery: 1934-39
Electrical Consumer Goods
Fuelled by suburban housing estates with electricity + chains such as M&S and J. Sainsbury’s
Used modern marketing + advertising techniques
Recovery: 1934-39
Food
Wider variety of foodstuffs, e.g fresh fruit from abroad
Prices reduced for basic foodstuffs
1936, Rowett Institute, ‘Food, Health, and Income’ - average diet improved sig. since 1918
Recovery: 1934-39
Access to Electricity
Increased homes with access
1920 - 730,000
1939 - 9,000,000*
Encouraged by Electrical Supply Act (1926) + creation of Central Electricity Board and National Grid
Recovery: 1934-39
Housing
Cheap money policy so
1930 - £316 mil borrowed for mortgages
1939 - over £700 mil
Owner occupiers, 750,000 to 3,250,000 (1920-1939)
Recovery: 1934-39
Transport
Rail networks + cars fuelled suburbia
Expansion of council houses
1.1 mil 1918-39, over 90% on new suburban estates
Recovery: 1934-39
Cost of Living
Fallen by more than a third by 1938
Social reformers (Rowntree) estimated quality of life in some Northern cities increased by 30%
Availability of contraception, fewer mouths to feed
Recovery: 1934-39
Public Health
Infant mortality rate fell from 14.3 to 12 per 1000 (1920-1939)
M/c men lived average 12 years longer, women 19
Tuberculosis Act (1921) - compulsory TB sanatoria, cases declined every year 1920-38
18 mil covered by state insurance, but not dependents (less than half covered)
Regional Variations in Living Standards, 1918-39
Heavy Industry
1932 - 12% in electrical appliances unemployed, 70% in ship-building
Decline of cotton, iron, coal as well
Height of Great Depression (1932) - Lon + SE, 11%, almost 40% in Wales + NE
Worst in Clydeside, Durham, Lanacashire, South Wales
London + West Midlands did better
Regional Variations in Living Standards, 1918-39
Regional Divisions + Action
1944, Beveridge - 85% of long term unemployment in Scotland, Wales, and Northern England
Hunger Marches from Jarrow to London by shipbuilders of closed Palmer shipyard - national attention
Regional Variations in Living Standards, 1918-39
Consumerism
Electrical consumption in southeast 3x higher than north
W/c families couldn’t participate in consumer boom - m/c phenomenon
Regional Variations in Living Standards, 1918-39
Healthcare
Postcode lottery
No national system, funding disproportionately centred on London
Infant mortality rate - 5.17 per 1000 in Wales, 0.86 in Kensington
