Have Living Standards Improved Since the 1970s?
Technological changes over the past decades have been one of the most important factors in why living standards have improved since 1970. In 1970 just 35 per cent of households owned a telephone but by 2006 92 per cent of households owned one. This shows how drastically and quickly technology has changed and how this has had an impact on people's lives. For other items, such as mobile phones, 79 per cent of households now have a least one, whereas no households had one, even by 1981. There have been advancements in other areas too. Education, on the whole, has improved as the number of people in higher education has increased by 302 per cent and ratios of pupils to teachers has fallen by 24.7 per cent. Another sign of the changing times has been the increase of females in full time employment by 43.4 per cent and the number of marriages falling, while the number of divorces have risen. So to what extent have living standards risen.