Ian Gazeley

Poverty in Britain, 1900-65

How was poverty measured and defined, and how has this influenced our judgement of the change in poverty in Britain during the first 60 years of the twentieth century? During this period, a large number of poverty surveys were carried out, the methods pf which altered after the Second World War. Commencing with Rowntrees social survey of York in 1899 and ending with Abel-Smith and Townsends Poor and the Poorest 1965, Ian Gazeley shows how the means of evaluation and causes of poverty changed.

Urban working-class food consumption and nutrition in Britain in 1904

This article re-examines the food consumption of working class households in 1904 and compares the nutritional content of these diets with modern measures of adequacy. We find a fairly steep gradient of nutritional attainment relative to economic class, with high levels of vitamin and mineral deficiency among the very poorest working households. We conclude that the average unskilled-headed working households was better fed and nourished than previously thought. When proper allowance is made for the likely consumption of alcohol, household energy intakes were significantly higher still. We investigate the likely impact of contemporary cultural food distribution norms and conclude on the basis of the very limited evidence available that women were receiving about 0.8 of the available food, which was consistent with their nutritional needs. We adjust energy requirements for likely higher physical activity rates and smaller stature and find that except among the poorest households, early twentieth century diets were sufficient to provide energy for reasonably physically demanding work. This is consistent with recent attempts to relate the available anthropometric evidence to long-run trends in food consumption. We also find that the lower tail of the household nutrition distribution drops away very rapidly, so that few households suffered serious food shortages.

Why was urban overcrowding much more severe in Scotland than in the rest of the British Isles? Evidence from the first (1904) official household expenditure survey

This article presents an analysis of British urban working-class housing conditions in 1904, using a rediscovered survey. We investigate overcrowding and find major regional differences. Scottish households in the survey were more overcrowded despite being less poor. Investigating the causes of this overcrowding, we find little support for supply-side theories or for the idea that the Scottish households in our survey experienced particularly great variations in income, causing them to commit to overly modest accommodation. We present evidence that is consistent with idea that particularly tough Scottish tenancy and local tax laws caused excess overcrowding. We also provide evidence that Scottish workers had a relatively high preference for food, rather than housing, expenditure, which can be at least partly attributed to their inheritance of more communal patterns of urban living.

Women's Pay in British Industry During the Second World War

This article reviews the evidence pertaining to changes in womens relative pay during the Second World War and presents new evidence relating to important wartime manufacturing industries. It is argued that gender pay inequality declined sharply where women were employed in industries that had previously been dominated by men, but did not occur in industries that had traditionally been important areas of female employment. The explanation for this pattern probably lies in a combination of excess demand effects and institutional factors, both of which were strongest in wartime munitions industries. Because of the importance of these industries to the war economy, the behaviour of inequality in munitions dominates the behaviour of inequality across all industries. Nearly all existing scholarship acknowledges the impact of the Second World War on reducing the employment segregation of women, but simultaneously views the war as an unimportant episode in the history of gender pay inequality. This article shows how the transition from ‘female’ to ‘male’ work also led to a significant improvement in womens relative pay.

The levelling of pay in Britain during the Second World War

This article examines the effect of total war on inequalities in pay in munitions industries in Britain during World War II. I present new data derived from Ministry of Labour monthly reports of changes in wage-rates, which allows for a systematic analysis of pay inequality by skill category and by gender and age. I also investigate changes in earnings equality using data derived from Earnings and Hours Enquiries and from records of the National Arbitration Tribunal. I conclude that pay differentials – defined by skill, gender or age – narrowed considerably during World War II. For men, the War represented an accentuation of a trend towards greater levelling that commenced in the later part of the 1930s and continued in the immediate postwar years. This was not the case for women workers. During the War years gender pay inequality in munitions industries was substantially reduced, but some of these gains were eroded with the coming of peace and demobilisation. Wartime labour policy was directed toward the deskilling of manufacturing work and this was coupled with both a significant expansion of unionisation (especially among unskilled workers) and institutional and legal changes that strengthened the bargaining position of trade unions. These factors suggest that institution factors worked in conjunction with labour demand effects to reduce pay inequality in those industries crucial for the war effort.

The Transformation of Hunger Revisited: Estimating Available Calories from the Budgets of Late Nineteenth-Century British Households

Levels of nutrition among British workers households in the late nineteenth century have been much debated. Trevon Logan (2006, 2009) estimated a very low average level of available calories. This paper re-examines the data and finds average levels of available calories much more in line with existing studies, more in line with what is known about energy requirements, and more in line with other aspects of the data. In sum, British households were likely to have been significantly better fed than Logan reports.