Changing Values (2): Work & Leisure

Some further comparisons of British attitudes half-a-century ago, around the time of the coronation, with the way we think today, this time concentrating on work and leisure. (As before, for the 1950s we are heavily reliant on surveys from Gallup, the only pollster then publishing regular public opinion surveys, the findings of which survive in book form - George H Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937-1975, New York: Random House, 1976, and Anthony King and Robert Wybrow, British Political Opinion 1937-2000: The Gallup Polls, London: Politico's, 2001.)

The most popular outdoor activity in the early fifties was gardening - not much change there. In 1953, half the public (49%) said they expected to do some gardening over the summer; in 1991, we found 56% said they had done some gardening in the previous month. (In the previous, 1989, survey the figure was 40% - but that survey was conducted in March, and this is presumably a question that needs a bit of seasonal adjustment!)

As for sports, 28% thought they would go swimming during the summer of 1953, 17% for a row or sail, 15% go cycling, 12% play tennis, 9% go hiking and 9% go fishing. Slightly less popular sports were bowls (8%), golf (7%) and cricket (6%). Participation in swimming and golf don't seem to have changed very much - earlier this year we found that 19% say they swim regularly and 5% play golf regularly, which allowing for the difference between expecting to do (maybe only once) in the future and having actually done regularly in the past suggests a steady level of involvement. On the other hand, only 2% now say they play cricket regularly, although that figure may be lower than it should be since regularly was defined as meaning "at least once a month", and few but the professionals will play monthly through the winter. But in a separate 1999 MORI survey, one in five (19%) of the public said they had been to a gym or health / fitness centre within the last month, largely an innovation of the last half-century.

Betting was popular, of course, though in those days there were not even betting shops, let alone a national lottery. The football pools were the easiest way to buy a chance of getting rich quick, and 47% of the public said (in 1951) that they had played the pools at least once in the previous year. More than a third had taken part in raffles, a quarter had had a bet on the horses and one in five on cards and on sweepstakes; 6% had had a bet on a dog. Of the 53% of the public who said in 1953 that they thought they would bet on the pools in the forthcoming football season, just over a third said their weekly stake would be two shillings or less (roughly £1.55 today); the remainder expected to bet more.

Despite the legalisation of betting shops, betting on racing does not seem to have spread. A MORI survey in 1991 (before the National Lottery started, of course), found 18% said they had bet on a dog or horse in the previous month. (Though this is less than the number who said they had bet in the 1951 Gallup survey, since there are a significant number of people whose only bet of the year is on the Grand National or Derby - neither of which were in the "last month" when our survey was conducted - this probably represents little change overall.)

But the lottery changed things, even if its falling sales suggest some of the effect may be wearing off. An NCSR survey in 2000 found that three-quarters of the public now gamble every year, with 65 per cent buying lottery tickets at least once. Only three per cent gamble at casinos, and seven per cent play bingo. (But then George Orwell writing in the 1940s had predicted the national lottery as the only thing in which the "proles" took any real interest in "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Judging by the tabloids, who presumably know what their readers are interested in, he's not far off the mark today. Ironically, when they are not talking about the lottery the same papers are frequently obsessed with Big Brother!)

Sport on television was a novelty in the 1950s, but by 1955 29% of the public had watched a league football match on TV during the previous year. Three-quarters of those who had a set said they would be more likely to stay at home to watch an important game than go to the match. Today, 42% of the public say they watch football on TV regularly, but only 10% pay regularly, and in 1999 just 11% had paid to see any professional sports match within the previous month.

With television still in its infancy, live entertainment and the cinema had a greater importance as leisure activities. In 1950, almost three in five adults (58%) said they had last been to the cinema within the previous four weeks. In 1999 we found that only 34% said they had been to the cinema in the last month and though film attendances have been climbing over the last couple of years, they are still well short of what was achieved in the pre-television days.

In those days of post-war austerity, many families still relied on home-made goods rather than buying everything at chain stores. In 1950, 41% of adults said that they knitted and 23% that they did home dressmaking (probably overwhelmingly women in each case), while 32% bottled fruit and 23% tended an allotment. Only the last of these finds much of an echo today, and that more for aspirational or lifestyle reasons than as a necessary source of affordable vegetables. Today shopping could be considered a major leisure activity in its own right (72% of the public in 1999 said that within the last month they had "gone shopping for pleasure", more than had had a drink in a pub or bar or a meal in a restaurant, and 48% of the public agreed that "Shopping for me is a good day out".)

Rationing was still in force for many foods, which can hardly have encouraged elaborate cooking at home; but most were happy with their lot, all the same. Four in five (80%) said they had no relative or friend in whose home they got better food than they did in their own. But not much has changed in our love of culinary novelty: in 1953, 59% of British adults told Gallup they liked something new tried out at dinner, and 15% of housewives had tried out something new on their husband in the last week (though 58% said their husband didn't like something new being tried out on him!) In 1999, a MORI Social Values survey found that 68% of the public now agree "I love trying out new dishes".

Even in those days, concern about animal welfare and farming methods was widespread, though less vocal. In 1953 Gallup told respondents "Hens kept in a battery lay far more eggs than if kept in a run. Some people, however, say that it is cruel."; 50% agreed it was cruel, 25% thought not and 25% had no opinion. In 1998, MORI found [Public Attitudes In France - Germany - Great Britain - Italy - Spain On Egg Purchasing And Labelling] high awareness of the issue and the majority of shoppers said that it was easy to find free-range eggs while shopping; 77% said they were willing to pay more for free range eggs. (Similar numbers in Germany and Spain but fewer in France and Italy would pay more, and in none of those countries was it as easy to find free range eggs to buy.) There was little scope for ethical consumerism in the fifties. Now it is increasingly one of the most powerful forces affecting businesses and their markets - not just in the animal rights field but over the whole field of corporate social responsibility and environmental concerns.

Today most of us prefer to relegate the importance of work as far as possible, though a sizeable minority still build our lives round it: in 1999 59% agreed that "If work interferes with my personal life, I would put work in second place", but 36% disagreed.

In 1950, 71% of those in work answered "yes" when asked "Do you get satisfaction out of your work?". The working week tended to be longer then, officially at least: half of those in work in 1952 said they worked a 5½ or 6 day week, and a further 12% more than 6 days. A third said that "as a rule" they worked paid overtime. These days contracted working weeks tend to be shorter, but there are a good many staff working unpaid overtime as a matter of course. In spring 2002, the Labour Force Survey found that the average regular working week for those who work, including overtime whether paid or not, was around 42 hours for men and 31 hours for women; though these averages of course are affected by the numbers in part-time work, most of whom are women. We are split over whether overtime is a good thing or not: 42% agreed (1999) that "I resent overtime eating into free time, even if it's paid", but 43% disagreed.

The early fifties were an era of full employment, and few men expected to find themselves without a job, although of course they worried about it nevertheless - the depression in the thirties was hardly a distant memory; but it was mainly the men that worked. In 1952, 4% said thy thought that they or their husband was likely to become unemployed during the year; a further 8% said they (or, again, their husband) was already unemployed. Earlier the same year, 7% said they worried "a lot" about keeping their/their husband's job, while 12% worried "very little" and the remaining 81% didn't know(!) Today's figures are not directly comparable, if only because we ask women about their own job's and not their husband's these days - apart from anything else that way means unemployment (or the fear of it) is effectively double-counted in any married couple, but last month 9% of those in work said they were very concerned about "the possibility of being made redundant or becoming unemployed over the next twelve months", while 15% were fairly concerned. Three-quarters (75%) were not very or not at all concerned.

If anything is needed to illustrate the difference in attitudes to women's working then and now, it is that Gallup felt it worthwhile asking, as late as 1954, "Do you approve or disapprove of paying women the same as men, if they are doing the same work?" - and 29% said they disapproved. Even of those who approved, a third agreed this radical change should be postponed "until the country's finances improve". Today, by contrast, the principle of equality is taken for granted - 89% agree that "women have the same rights as men and should have the same power as men".

Seven in ten of the public had savings of at least £10 in 1952 (roughly the equivalent in purchasing power of £160 today), most frequently in the Post Office (35% of the public) or bank (32%). Only 19% had savings certificates, 11% had money in the Co-op and 6% in building societies. It is a measure of our increased expectations of living standards that £10 was also the average estimate that the public made of "how much a week… a family of two children, husband and wife needs for health and comfort". Two in five said that, allowing for their own family size, their household income was at a lower level than that.

In those days most of the public had rent to pay rather than a mortgage out of their often meagre earnings. Just 28% of the public told Gallup in 1950 that they owned their own house; 65% were renting. Now the figures are reversed with more than seven in owner-occupied households (29% own outright but 44% are still paying off mortgages); just 26% rent, only 7% in the private sector. Of homeowners, three in five (58%) had already paid off their mortgage (1954 figures), so only about one in eight of the whole public were still making mortgage payments, barely a quarter of the figure today.

The early fifties was an era of housing shortage (though house-building was proceeding at a record rate to remedy it), and many were desperate to move into better or more suitable accommodation but could not. In 1951, 36% of the public wanted to move; 21% said they would have moved if something suitable turned up even if their rent was increased by a quarter, and 10% that they would even if it increased by a half. At the start of coronation year, 14% said they had moved during 1952. We are more settled today, even though the rise in the number of separate households - through more people choosing to live alone - is again putting pressure on the housing stock. According to the DTLR's Survey of English Housing, 2.3 million households in England had moved in 2001-2, roughly 10%. (Note, however, that the percentage of the population living in households that moved is not necessarily the same as the percentage of households.)

Shortage of money was clearly a problem, and 75% of the public said they were trying to cut down their spending on something. Most popular for economy were reducing spending on smoking (28%) and the cinema or theatres (22%). 14% were trying to cut down their expenditure on beer. (Know that feeling!) But an unhappy 21% were trying to economise on "everything". Almost half the public (46%) said they worried a lot about making ends meet, compared to 43% who said they did so only very little.

Big purchases in those days were sometimes made on hire purchase rather than by cash - in 1954, 28% of the public said that they were buying something on HP or deferred payment terms,; almost three-quarters of these, though, were paying less than a pound a week. The vast majority were able to keep up their payments (3% of the public were in arrears on their payments). Television sets were one of the biggest HP markets, being new and expensive - half the 6% who had bought a TV set in the previous six months had done it on HP.

These days HP has been largely displaced by borrowing on credit cards or personal loans. MORI Financial Services data for the first half of 2003 shows that 16% of adults are borrowing on plastic, 11% have taken out personal loans and 5% have taken a further advance on their mortgage; 4% have credit from a car manufacturer, 3% a student loan and 3% are buying something on HP. In total, just over a third have debts in one or more of these forms. Are we comfortable with it? In 2002, we found that 39% of the public agreed that "Borrowing is a part of life and I don't worry about it"; but when we personalised the statement (in separate surveys conducted this year), only 18% said "I am borrowing and don't worry about it" - leaving a substantial number who are borrowing and do worry about it.

So we are richer now, though we often owe more. Has it made us any happier than we were?

In November 1952, 43% of the public said that "in general" they were very happy and 46% fairly happy; only 9% chose the third option, "not very happy". We have asked a similar question now and then over the years, most recently in June 2002 (very shortly after England's defeat of Argentina in the World Cup, to put it in context). The MORI question used a balanced five-point scale, as opposed to Gallup's unbalanced three-point scale, so the responses are not directly comparable; but the overall impression is that we may be more miserable than we were, even if the majority are more happy than unhappy.

Base: c. 1,000-2,000 GB adults

On the other hand, another 1952 Gallup question suggests a high degree of insecurity: 22% of the public said that in general they worried a lot, and 31% worried a fair amount; 31% worried a little and only 16% not at all.

Envy over other people's pay, then and now, was no doubt a factor. As we found in our poll for the FT released this week, 78% of the public agree that "Directors of large companies are paid too much for the job they do". Back in 1955, Gallup didn't ask about company directors, but found that 25% thought lawyers and dock workers were overpaid, 22% thought the same of miners and 16% of doctors and clerical workers. Only 9% thought doctors were underpaid, but 39% thought railwaymen and 26% school teachers ought to get more. Here there has certainly been a change - today doctors are almost uncriticisable, and 32% think they are underpaid for the job they do. (MORI/BMA survey, February 2003). But teachers still have public support - 54% now say they are underpaid, exceeded only by the 81% who would pay more to nurses.

In 1955, 28% of British adults said that if they were free to do so, they would like to go and settle in another country (with the "white" Commonwealth - Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa , together with the USA- being much the most popular destinations). In some respects, not a great deal has changed: in MORI's Social Values survey in 1999, 29% agreed "If I had the chance I would emigrate"; but their favoured destinations would now, no doubt, be far more likely to encompass Europe than at the time of Gallup's survey.

Of course, while the world has changed there are plenty who wish it had not. In 1999, MORI found that half of those aged 55-or-over agreed that "I would like Britain to be the way it used to be"; only 37% disagreed. The assumptions of several of the newspaper columnists when they write about "the bad old days", that the modern world must be an improvement over the old, is not shared by the majority of those Britons old enough to remember it.