Unemployment in 1930s Britain

Unemployment in thirty-something BritainExa exploit the problems facing families living in areas of spunky unemployment in Britain in the 1930sIntroductionThe inter-war flow is truly mavin of a double-edged transition. On the one hand, this period was to see the beginnings of revolution in many social institutions ( such as marriage, family and the Church) that the men and women of the late Victorian earned run avearned run averagege would have taken for granted. The inter-war period (which provided the necessary societal bases for the post-war creation of the eudaemonia State) overly saw sparing expansion and an improvement in welfare and living standards infant mortality steadily decreased during the inter-war period, from 108 per 1000 embody births in 1913, to 53 by 1938 (Thorpe, p.57, 1994) and the advent of mass consumerism and the wide-spread potential for unfilled and tourism amongst Britons, in other words, hall-marks of a society in the run of modernisation (Steven son, 1984).On the other hand, there is a darker side to this fancy of untrammelled progress. The inter-war period has been characterised sinisterly as the devils decade (Stevenson, p.266, 1984). This gens was bestowed on paper of the image this decade has of cosmopolitan unemployment, which led to wide-spread exiguity and Hunger Marches. The Wall Street Crash of 1929, which halted the Ameri can frugal spate of the 1920s, led to a world-wide economic slump, and is the watershed for the mass unemployment that was to pervade Britain in the 1930s for the eighteen days between 1921-1938, the official figure for unemployment never fell beneath one one million million million (Harris, p.203, 1994). Britains worst years for unemployment were later onwards 1931, a crisis year, because the disaster of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 had had duration to take resolution. In the winter of 1932-3, unemployment reached its spunkyest extreme, with just under three million workers (repr esenting a quarter of the registered workforce) unemployed (Thorpe, p.88, 1994). As with any period of economic stagnation, unemployment brings with it a range of knock-on social problems for the family unit.Structural UnemploymentUnemployment can be categorized as either cyclical or structural. The former is the type of unemployment that comes and goes in phases. It is linked with the economic cycle of boom and bust when the economy is in boom, then unemployment in certain sectors will temporarily reduce, though the dialogue also holds. In the 1930s, which saw quite a dramatic economic cycle of boom and bust, cyclical unemployment was always a large and knockout problem. However, the problem of cyclical unemployment, being more(prenominal) speedyly noticeable, is one that can easily mask an underlying problem of structural unemployment. This is the unemployment that still obtains, notwithstanding any periods of high economic activity. For example, even in those years of peak e conomic activity in the inter-war period, there was still a high level of unemployment in the staple export trades. For example, even before the world-wide economic crisis of 1929-1931, the traditional heavy industries, such as ship-building and coal-mining, also faced high levels of unemployment. By 1929, a fifth of all coalminers were unemployed, and likewise for those workers in the exhort and steel industries (Stevenson, p.269, 1984). The structural unemployment in these kinds of heavy industries, perhaps where a mine was abandoned or disused, for example, brought about the typical pattern of localised unemployment during the 1930s. The era saw depressed regions, where the local economy was dependent on heavy pains. In a region such as the north-east, with a dependable and steady history of heavy industry, unemployment hit hard, as can be seen from the emotive Jarrow March to London, organised in 1936 by the local council, to stack attention to the problem of high unemploym ent, particularly in the heavy industry of ship-building (Thorpe, p.176, 1994).PovertyContemporary commentators on 1930s Britain regarded the high unemployment of their time as a frightening unseasoned development. As a result, their anxieties utter themselves in the large number of social investigations into the causes of poverty (defined as not having nice income to maintain health) and the impact of unemployment on families, and thence on societies. These studies helped to raise consciousness of the plight of the unemployed, and to a large extent, provided the momentum for the social change that dawned after the Second World War (Harris, p.213, 1994). Poverty was not necessarily an immediate consequence of unemployment some unemployed workers comprise that their benefits provided a more reproducible wage compared to what they used to earn from insecure, seasonal labour. However, this was only a minority. The bulk found that unemployment brought with it a drop in income. Thu s, in order to appurtenance their income, many workers relied on their savings, or found themselves increasingly reliant on other methods in order to make ends meet. At the same time, it was found that unemployment was the major contributing factor towards the poverty of a household in 1936, Seebohm Rowntree found that 86.4 per cent of the unemployed families living in York were living below the poverty line (Harris, p.214, 1994).Health and MalnutritionAs might be expected, one of the more immediate consequences of living below the poverty line is decline health and malnutrition. Rowntree also made detailed investigation into the health and nutrition of unemployed families, and compared them with that of the populace as a whole. His concluded that the families of the unemployed survived on a diet which was to all extents worse than that of those employed (Rowntree, p.182-5, 1941). Other studies of this period showed that unemployment had led to a higher incidence of childhood dis eases (Harris, p.214, 1994), though it was intemperate to prove once and for all that unemployment was significantly affecting infection rates of poverty-linked diseases (such as TB or anaemia). All in all, it could only be conclusively shown that unemployment did have a profound effect on the standards of nutrition, leading in some cases to severe malnutrition (Stevenson, p.283-4, 1984).Mental HealthThough the main condense of much contemporary commentary was on the adverse effects unemployment placed on physical health, the deterioration of the mental health of the unemployed was also noted. At a time when the study of psychology was incipient, commentators still took account of the stark impact being out of work could have on self-esteem, and they also characterised the period following unemployment as falling into stages ranging from optimism that a new job could be found, to pessimism and possible suicidal feelings, when work was difficult or impossible to come by Home Offic e Statistics of 1930 showed that two unemployed men were committing suicide every day (Stevenson, p.287, 1984) though care should be taken in attributing unemployment as the sole factor in suicide. No doubt unemployment had a part to play in the decision of a few to commit suicide, though this is only the extreme of a general feeling of malaise, boredom, hopelessness and dishonour that accompanied the status of unemployed. Many workers, especially the more skilled middle-classes who found themselves unemployed, reported a feeling of shame at finding themselves in that condition. Some men disliked to reveal their unemployment to their wives, and tried to conceal it for a while as best they could (Stevenson, p.286, 1984). culminationIn dealing with a diffuse social problem such as unemployment, it is imperative not to draw hard and fast diachronic conclusions. Certainly, generalisations can be made, in that unemployment had a profound and long-lasting effect on those who were forced into this economic circumstance. However, unemployment, and the coping mechanisms used to deal with it, meant several(predicate) things to different people. It is also the case that the related social problems linked to unemployment, videlicet those of poverty, malnutrition and depressed mental health, are all relative measures. It is true to maintain that the effects of unemployment were felt so keenly precisely because living standards had mainly been on the increase since the dawn of the twentieth century. It was, however, the shocking social experiences of 1930s Britain that provided the catalyst for the creation of the Welfare State and other social reconstructions after the Second World War, and ignited the post-war aspiration to create a better, more equitable, society for all.BibliographyHarris, B., Unemployment and the Dole in Interwar Britain 203-220 in P. Johnson (ed.), 20th Century Britain Economic, genial and Cultural Change (Harlow Addison Wesley Longman Ltd., 19 94)Rowntree, B.S., Poverty and Progress A Second genial Survey of York (London, 1941)Stevenson, J., British Society 1914-1945 The Pelican Social History of Britain, J.H.Plumb (ed.), (London Penguin Books Ltd., 1984)Thorpe, A., The Longman Companion To Britain in the era of the two World Wars 1914-1945 (London Longman Group Ltd., 1994)