Work and Pay in 20th Century Britain

Nicholas Crafts, Professor of Economic History at the University of Warwick, is one of the leading international experts on productivity and the causes of economic growth, and especially the role of new technologies. This expertise about technologies of the past has made him one of the most interesting thinkers on the new technologies of today, and he is currently co-directing a major research project on large-scale technological change.Ian Gazeley is Senior Lecturer in Economic History at the University of Sussex. Ian works on living standards and poverty in Britain 1880-1950. His research has been primarily concerned with quantitative measures of working class living standards.Andrew Newell is Head of the Department of Economics and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sussex. He is a labour economist with research interests in wage determination and unemployment, with a special interest on the impact of structural economic change.

• Introduction ; 1. Living standards ; 2. Structural change ; 3. Manual Work and Pay, 1900-1970 ; 4. Wages and wage inequality 1970-2000 ; 5. Work over the life course ; 6. The household and the labour market ; 7. Women and work 1970-2000 ; 8. The 'Welfare State' and the labour market ; 9. Industrial relations ; 10. Unemployment ; 11. Education and the labour market ; 12. Britain's twentieth century productivity performance in international perspective ; 13. Immigration and the labour market

This is an important and interesting book. The chapters of this book, each written by appropriate experts, dig down and uncover the forces at work and the complex interactions between them. The rise and fall of trade unions, the rise of the service sector, the decline in fertility, the fall and rise of earnings dispersion are some of the dramatic changes which are analysed and explained. Overall, the book builds a picture of the workings of the 20th century British labour market which will fascinate anyone interested in how the world works.