the country. There was more need for secretaries, receptionist and support work. Typing pools
in big offices mainly women tyuping letters, contracts, things that computers generate now.
Presently, the computer has truely reduced that kind of work.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGE AFTER WW2
* Broad and general - the whole world
* Focus on Europe 1950-90
* Impossible not to refer to the USA in particular
* Margaret Thatcher, 1989 - "There is no society, only individuals"
* This era can be characterised by:
* A wide-scale challenge to and subsequent breakdown of accepted beliefs and values
* The expansion of personal rights and freedom - remember the French Revolution,
Declaration of the Rights of Man
Background Factors
* "The Golden Years" - economic boom from 1950-70
* Accelerated and intensified technological progress
* Telecommunications lead to concept of "global village" and the TV age
* Disintegration and movement of industrial and manufacturing bases
Social Themes
* Death of the peasantry
* Demise of the working classes
* Expansion of welfare state
* Growth of Higher Education
* Youth Culture
* Revival of Feminism
* Decline of the Nuclear Family
Death of the peasantry
* For much of the world the beginning of the end of the Middle Ages in 1950
* 1939 only UK and Belgium had less than 20% population in agriculture/fisheries
* 1980 no country in W Europe more than 10% - UK + US only 3%
* This tiny workforce producing vast amount of food for domestic + world market
* Africa, SE Asia +China - more peasants
World-wide Urbanisation
* Emptying countryside - farming methods, education, jobs
* 3rd world, biggest cities - shanty towns
* 1st world, city centre - work, people lived in tower blocks, suburbs and satellite towns
* Expansion of transport infra-structure, especially roads
* Rise in cars - symbol of individual freedom
Demise of the Working Class
* Up to 1950 working class had a clear identity and common features
* Emphasis on "we" - life was communal
* Golden Years 50-60s, "You’ve never had it so good" - job security, wages and cheap
consumer goods - undreamed of standard of living
* More opportunity to pursue own interests, less incentive to fight system
* Stretching of working class - supervisors, technicians
* Changes in production led to different strata and divisions, skilled and unskilled,
immigrant labour
* By 1970s some working class voting conservative
* Demolition of "slum" terraces, replaced by blocks of flats - decline of community spirit
* Education fuelled aspirations, blurring of class boundaries
* Young adults with disposable income
* Decline of traditional manufacturing in developed world
* Reduced demand or replaced - coal/nuclear
* Transferred to countries where labour was cheaper - steel, shipbuilding
* Rise of global corporate economy - less loyalty to countries and communities
Expansion of Welfare State
* Great increase in state activity, directly involved in generating and controlling economic
activity - 2 new accepted truths
1. Keynes’ influence - social goal of full employment > social + economic policy interrelated
Welfare no longer charity - benefits were a right "cradle to grave"
2. Equality of Opportunity - all citizens had a right to access healthcare, education, pensions
Centrepiece was health - drop in child mortality + increased life expectancy
Medical advances > rising expectations of more people
* Spiralling costs > greater government spending/borrowing based on indefinite economic
growth
* Few governments brave enough to reduce provision, but some critics
Education
* More jobs requiring qualifications, technicians, admin, education, health
* School leaving age raised
* Explosion in HE - 1940-80 from 0.1% to 2.5% of population in UK, France +
Germany
* Students counted in millions, especially US, 7 countries with 100,000+ HE teachers
* Parents’ social aspirations for children
* Not mirrored in Iron Curtain bloc - slower economy = less demand
The Student Factor
* From 1960 students became a significant factor, politically, socially + culturally
* Students came to be: mobile, radical, communicative, expressive, volatile
* Students had always been seen in this light, but just a youthful phase - why so different
now?
Why Radical Students?
* Numbers - tensions between them and the institutions receiving them
* Dissatisfaction led to challenge to authority
* Being a student was no longer such a privilege
* 1st generation to grow up after the War no comparison with pre-war years
* Though poor, they had time to raise questions about society
* No longer about improving conditions as in 19th C
* ? Over society, affluent but materialistic
* In socialist countries target was political freedom
* Paris 68 + US Vietnam demos showed that students could not carry a rev, but they
acted as barometer
Youth Culture
* As well as deep changes in the shape of society, there were also far-reaching changes in
the relationships between individuals making up society
* Relationships between generations
* relationships between the sexes
* Youth became a larger more diverse group - early teens to mid twenties
* Independent, earning, living away
* Self-conscious, different from parents, looking for identity
* Confident/arrogant - youth end in itself
* Rebellious, rejected accepted values, authority
* Idealistic, "Love and Peace"
* Icons - James Dean, Che Guevara
* Music - rock’n’roll, subversive element
* Drugs - alternative reality, "Turn on"
* Sex - the pill, the permissive society
* Fashion - jeans, miniskirt
* Individualism - the hippies, "Drop out. Do your own thing"
* Internationalism - easy transmission of images and ideas - jeans + rock music
Diffusion of Spirit of Youth
* Became an important market - targeted by records, fashion, cosmetics - could not
escape consumer society
* Diverse/individual - support for causes, not to one particular ideology - would not
accept the discipline of real revolutionary party (except small terrorist groups, 70-80s)
The Women’s Movement
* Relationships between the sexes
* Low key since early 20thC, other issues
* Growth of tertiary sector of economy, white collar workers, caring professions
* 1950-70 women in paid work doubled to 50%
* Comm states, official line very pro-women - greater opportunities, but the reality was
not so great
* In the West there were 2 main strands showing a class difference:
* 1. The need to work, finance new life- style, no more child labour
* 2. Emancipation, equal opps, no need to work but to find identity + purpose, escape
from kitchen sink
* General change in women’s expectations about themselves and society’s of their place
in society
* Revolt of traditionally faithful women against the Church, eg Italy, Ireland - birth control
* Examples of women in senior positions, even Heads of State - not possible pre-war
* Women courted by Left, replacing working class
* The ?s and issues raised by women came to involve everyone as revolution in cultural +
moral life gained momentum
Decline of Nuclear Family
* Up to 1950 most societies shared several social features, formal marriage, husband’s
authority, senior over junior
* Post 1950 big changes, sexual habits + attitudes, gay legalisation, birth control +
abortion
* Rise in divorce rate, living together, single parent families, adults living solo
* In some places, nuclear family the exception
The Cultural Revolution
* Boundaries between art + non-art hazy
* New fashion denying validity of objective judgement, "eye of beholder"
* New criterion - what is popular?
* Technology > reproducibility, music, film
* Mass consumerism > mass entertainment industry, wider choice, videos, satellite
* Growth + elevation of pop/rock music, new international language
* Art as investment, eg Impressionists value x 23 1975-89
* Move away from individual artist to part of a team, directors, musicians
* In Comm bloc artist still had a role + status, focus of dissent, needed by the people