To ask whether we could ever go back to what it was like in the 50s-70s?

[myblueheav3n]

I mean in a financial sense more than anything, although I know it wasn’t perfect. I only have a very superficial understanding of it all, but as far as I can tell:

• Affordable housing, and a lot of social housing for those who couldn’t buy.

• Liveable wages for unskilled jobs and good opportunity to work your way up in whatever your profession was. Plenty of work available for young people.

• Education was worth a lot more, e.g. now a university degree is minimum for a ‘decent’ job, and not even that is really guaranteed either.

I had more but after thinking about it for a while they’ve slipped my mind In general it seems like it was better, and people who grew up during these periods generally did well for themselves.

Financial side. Many women didn't work. They do now. Who is going to get the jobs then, men or women?

No MRIs/imaging of health concerns generally, no keyhole surgery, a significantly higher infant mortality rate, legal marital rape.. oh yes sign me up right now.

Average wages are much, much higher now than in the 1970s, let alone the 1950s. The cost of housing has risen but almost everything else is much more attainable for ordinary people, in terms of consumer goods, quality of food etc.

When I first came to Birmingham in the late 1980s, the City Council had just been found to have been acting illegally by providing fewer grammar school places for female students than male students. I rmember reading that after the 11 plus exam was introduced on a national scale it was decided to set the pass rate for girls at a higher rate because in the first few years more females than males passed in significant numbers. And of course it was considered to be more important to provide the educational and occupational opportunities other posters have discussed above to young men than to young women. I don't know whether it was fortunate or unfortunate for me personally to have it explained in a school lesson in the 1970s that O Level and other exam rates were not (and never had been) a simple matter of the best student getting the best marks. Is the term 'aggregration' when an average pass rate is fixed and percentage pass grades allotted regardless of individual ablility? I say 'unfortunate' for me personally as it added to my cynicism and made me laugh at the notion that the 'best' person would be selected for a job or position of authority. Growing up in the seventies was a tough time in many ways but the politics of it were also laid bare for those with eyes to see.

I think for such changes you need to have a real collective drive across the political spectrum. After the WW2 there was one and there was huge social changes at the time and politics adapted around that

The Labour Party of the later 50/60’s was not particularly left wing (and certainly not as left as Corbyn &Co) it was a time of huge social change in the western world. Under Wilson‘s (The people’s man) government they lowered taxes (which were very high for the very wealthy), lessened the hold from unions and managed to gain the middle support of the party and voters - Wilson moved himself to a more centre position to gain and to keep his leadership

The polices even for the conservatives (a lot of council property built) were supportive of social changes

This was very much what was happening in the western world. We were not long out of a world war and there was a drive for everyone’s lives to improve it was felt the people were owed that

There was also a genuine plot to stage some sort of coup against Wilson. And then his sudden and apparently unprovoked resignation. It does sometimes have a strong sense of deja vu as I well remember my father voting in the Welsh independence referendum and the one on joining the then Common Market. No and Yes respectively, just as I would / have voted recently myself, though I suspect he may have gone for Brexit had he been alive in 2016. It was strange when Mrs Thatcher was elected to be quite pleased a woman could be PM and at the same time to hate her as my class enemy. (Istill do and now her direct successors also).

Funnily enough I was later to have a connection to her as I'd worked at the Grand Hotel Brighton before it was bombed by the IRA. Also had been inadvertently close to a couple of explosions when I lived In London, very violent times.

OOps just realised that looks like I voted yes to Brexit -poor syntax. I would have voted yes to joining (was a few years too young to vote then), and did vote no to leaving. Not that anyone cares!

OP, I think there are probably some things which, if we wanted to, we could change. The education angle is one that might be possible and worthwhile. Inflation of education requirements is stupid, doesn't really serve anyone well, and is a waste.

No.

I was born in the 1960's in the post industrial Midlands and you were considered to be doing well if you left school at 16 for a shop job and 'quite stuck up' if you reached the heady heights of being a secretary. I was in the top stream at school but there was no suggestion of higher (or further) education, as it was the 1980s with 1 in 10 people unemployed. You were lucky to get any job, despite the blatant sexism and harassment and assault faced daily. My parents bought their own house due to my dad working three jobs but we were still considered 'hard up' compared to others.

I'd imagine it was different in better off areas but women still had to leave jobs upon marriage and couldn't access finance independently.

It was a good time to be a middle or upper class man though.

I agree with And why not about the political drive in the 60s/70s coming from the experience of the second world war and also the '30s experience of the Depression. My father grew up then and had to leave school early to get a job and later joined the RAF as a means of getting a training and seeing more of the world. He often talked of it so I suppose that's where my own political consciousness came from. Of course people like Mrs Thatcher and Edward Heath lived through the same times but had different conclusions based on their own lower middle class 'striving' backgrounds. My area was actually very democratic and cohesive, I went to school (comprehensive) with the son of our Labour MP and one of my brothers became a long-serving labour councillor. The parents of another classmate had a small baker's shop and I remember thinking well you will never have to worry about getting enough to eat so that was a very basic awareness from my parents' life experience.

@Girlyracer

Financial side. Many women didn't work. They do now. Who is going to get the jobs then, men or women?

This is a myth. There was a big drama about this and how more women entering the workforce would "take the jobs from men". Economics doesn't work that way. The economy is not a finite size. With more people in the workforce businesses expanded, new businesses were established, and there was no negative impact on employment rates.

This is similar to the myth that EU workers "stole jobs" from UK citizens. The data shows that this didn't happen. They filled skills gaps, paid more tax on average than UK citizens, used services less, set up new businesses that increased overall employment, etc.

The economy is not a fixed size. With more people to work and to then spend their wages, it grows.

Writing about some of my memories reminds me to say that the op's original assumptions about getting council housing and jobs relatively easily in the 60s or 70s certainly were not true for my family.

Obviously everybody's experience is just that - personal. But I do remember that my parents had to wait 5 years with 7 children in a house with no inside toilet, no bathroom, hot water or heating with holes in the wall, three miles from my dad's work with no car before getting a house near my dad's work. I was 7 but I remember the day we were told we could move vividly.

Despite my dad working every hour available and extra at weekends I never remember a day of not being aware of how much food we each had at every meal and what was in the house even at Christmas. Basically we had to have ratioining not to go hungry. Domestic science lessons were an embarassment because we did not have extra marg, flour, cheese etc. to take into cookery lessons. My dad managed brilliantly. (Mum had died). We had presents and holidays and pets and were encouraged at school but also had the object lesson before us that hard work got you more hard work.

He would be speechless with disbelief if he could see the luxury I now live in despite it being what many would consider - I don't know, 'substandard'? as so many seem to think living in public housing is completely unacceptable now. I am grateful and happy where I am but I know I have always had the kind of poverty of expectations the pp refers to despite getting a degree as a mature student.

Both sets of grandparents could hardly ever afford meat, and one gran stole the contents of a church collection box to feed her children.

So I don't think that it was better financially.

Here you go, PolkadotGiraffe

fullfact.org/education/social-mobility-selective-education-era/

While we're doing anecdata, I can think of only two working class people during my time at university in the 70s. I was one of them.

I know a few Oxbridge graduates. None of them were working class.

@cateycloggs I well remember Wilson's sudden resignation and the shock it caused, but as far as I know it was because he was diagnosed as being in the early stages of alzheimers, not for any other reason (which was kept quiet at the time). He did deteriorate very rapidly after he resigned.

I was born in the 1960's in the post industrial Midlands...I was in the top stream at school but there was no suggestion of higher (or further) education, as it was the 1980s with 1 in 10 people unemployed.

I'd imagine it was different in better off areas but women still had to leave jobs upon marriage and couldn't access finance independently.

You don’t say when in the sixties you were born, but let’s say it was 1965. You would have been sitting your O Levels in 1981. If you were in the top stream you’d have been entered for O Levels rather than CSEs.

It’s very likely that the school you were at was a comprehensive rather than a secondary modern.

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that any comprehensive school in 1981 would not have told a bright pupil about higher education. The information was everywhere. I was born in 1971 and went to a comp in a poor part of Manchester. I was bombarded with information about university from the age of 15. It’s the same story for most of the people I studied with, and later worked with, who came from from similar backgrounds.

The bit about your not being told about higher education ‘because it was the 1980s with 1 in 10 people unemployed’ doesn’t make sense. The first does not logically follow the second. In fact, in the early 80s unemployed people were actually encouraged into further education.

As for your last paragraph: what era are you talking about, when women were forced out of jobs on marriage? That certainly wasn’t the 1980s. As a PP noted, the marriage bar was legislated against in the 1940s.

I can’t imagine anything much worse.
The poor were kept in their place.
Women were kept in their place.

The idea of ‘ being able to work your way up’ is a joke or seriously misinformed. Poor children went to secondary modern schools and did CSEs; richer children went to independent or grammar schools and did GCEs and A levels.

I was born in the 60’s and so grew up and entered the work force in the 70’s.
My parents divorced in the early 70’s when divorce was still stigmatised. No tax credits or universal credit to help a single mother with young children and an ex who rarely paid any maintenance.
I passed my 11 plus but no money to pay the bus fare to get me to the grammar school so I walked to the local comp.
I got good grades. Good enough to get me into university now but working class kids like me rarely went to university. In fact of all the kids I grew up with only one did and that was a boy who was exceptionally bright but had it been a girl his parents probably wouldn’t have pushed so hard for education as his year younger sister never went.
I did go to a local college post 16 for 2 years as BTECS were beginning to become available to study but went I left there was no jobs and it was either a YTS scheme at £30 per week or a temp agency doing traditionally low paid women’s office jobs ie switchboard and filing. I was luck and went from this to a low grade civil service job where it took me a few years to get to EO level.

Things might not be perfect now but the 70’s were pretty shit as well.

No thanks.

I remember the 70s, no central heating, no facilities, rampant sexism, awful food and coats that didn't keep you warm. My overwhelming memory is of being cold and bored.

Social housing may have been available but we had a much smaller population then and a lot of the housing wasn't great quality anyway. One of the reasons it was sold off was because it needed new kitchens & bathrooms, rewiring, new roofs, insulation just to make it compliant.

I got good grades. Good enough to get me into university now but working class kids like me rarely went to university

I’m afraid that that isn’t true. Plenty of working class kids went to university in the 1970s. Perhaps not as many as kids from wealthier backgrounds, but it happened.

The key is that you got grades good enough to get [you] into university now. When far fewer people went to university, as was the case right up until the 1990s, you needed much higher A level grades. Of course you did.

Now that there are more than 100 universities in the U.K., all of whom have massively expanded the number of places available - there are almost four times as many students at the university I studied at, compared to when I was there - people with lower grades can go.

@user1471565182. Plenty of working class kids went to university in the 1970s.Perhaps not as many as kids from wealthier backgrounds, but it happened

NO. Not plenty in fact only 5%ish of working class students went to uni in the 1970s. You really cannot ignore low participation rate to single out the exceptions and portray it as acceptable. In absolute terms if one working class student went to uni in the 1970s then yes it happened . However You’re wilfully ignoring data and research to concentrate on the minority to prove your spurious point

@1471565182 apologies I incorrectly tagged you I’m in fact addressing @Iamthewombat

@Iamthewombat
NO Not plenty in fact only 5%ish of working class students went to uni in the 1970s. You really cannot ignore low participation rate to single out the exceptions and portray it as acceptable. In absolute terms if one working class student went to uni in the 1970s then yes it happened . However You’re wilfully ignoring data and research to concentrate on the minority to prove your spurious point

NO Not plenty in fact only 5%ish of working class students went to uni in the 1970s

During the 1970s, the percentage of all school leavers going to university increased from below 10% to 14%, according to the data I have seen. If 5% of those were working class school leavers then that isn’t a bad strike rate. Far from ideal, but not bad.

I think you are confusing the proportion of all people attending university who came from a working class background with absolute participation rates during the 1970s, which were universally low compared to now.

As in half of the 10% at the start of the decade compared to more than a third at the end, if we assume that the 5% held true throughout the decade, which it won’t have.

Just in case of confusion.

I’m not confused in the least. I simply don’t think a tiny minority of working class students attending uni is indicative of a fair system or social mobility. In fact, it is indicative of the disadvantages and hurdles working class students encountered

In absolute terms,Yes some working class students attended university, but that in itself doesn’t equal social mobility