British Living Standards
Understanding poverty & prosperity in twentieth century Britain
Childrens' tea in post-war kitchen, 1945 INF2-44, The National Archives, London UK.
BLS is where you’ll find the latest studies, data, and methods on the measurement of British living standards. From 1900 to 1960 the lives of working people in Britain were transformed from the widespread chronic poverty into the modern consumer society. Here you can study how this transformation came about, using data from every official survey of households of the period. You can also read and contribute to the latest studies of these data.
This project that created and continues to build this virtual centre involves a vast amount of work. Millions of pages of survey returns from thousands of households over the period are in the process of being digitised (turned from information sitting on shelves in archives into readily available digital information). Most of this material has never been studied or digitised before.
Call for Papers
On 22-23 June, we will be hosting a workshop on “The evolution of living standards 1880-1960 in Britain and beyond.” We’re especially interested in work that sheds light upon the paths of fertility, infant mortality, real wages and household income inequality for any of the industrial countries of Western Europe and North America. The deadline for the submission of a one page abstract is 1 March 2012. More Information (PDF)
Document last modified: 4 January 2011
Cite this as: "Welcome", British Living Standards (http://www.britishlivingstandards.sussex.ac.uk/)
© British Living Standards Project
Professor Ian Gazeley & Andrew Newell (Directors)
Dr Mintewab Bezabih (Economics Research Fellow), Dr Rebecca Searle (History Research Fellow), Dr Samantha Shave (History Research Fellow) & Dr Michael Hawkins (Technical Director)
