Rise of Consumerism in Post-War Britain

The rise of consumerism in the 1950s and 60s was closely linked to wider social changes in the post-war period. Its unprecedented growth was stimulated by a shift in political consensus at the end of the Second World War and has, in turn, shaped the Britain we live in today. The impact of consumerism was vast; the ever-expanding consumer market introduced a variety of new goods and methods of food preparation which in turn influenced filial patterns, population distribution, class and gender. The growth of consumerism could not have taken place without “corresponding changes in the scale, and distribution, of consumer demand”, which experienced a colossal increase in the post-war period. Mass consumerism, as stated by Hartmut Kaelble in the words of Peter Gurney, was “perhaps the major watershed in European social history between the middle and end of the twentieth century”.

British society encountered a wave of change and economic boom following the Second World War due to the post-war consensus of the government which favoured high taxing and welfare spending. Employment was high – unemployment was only 1.6% between 1951-69 - and the income of the population grew by 1300% from 1951-1981. As incomes rose, so did the population itself; from 1901-1980, the population grew by 50%, and some historians, like Benson, believe that the expansion of wealth and population growth “transformed the volume of potential purchasing power at the disposal of the British consumer”. The post-war baby boom also introduced a new group of consumers in teenagers, who had more money at their disposal due to their increasingly wealthy parents. Adolescents were also staying in the education system until their late teens, allowing more free time at their disposal. Britain experienced a “burgeoning youth culture” in the 1960s, where producers of pop culture targeted teenagers with new fashions, music and films. Furthermore, since people were living longer, pensioners also became a large consumer group. Through the accumulation of “property, personal possessions, pension rights and other assets during the course of their working lives”, pensioners became increasingly wealthy, which in turn made them a targeted consumer group.

As the population became wealthier, there was a growth in urbanisation, which in turn led to changes in how they were distributed. People moved away from the countryside to the cities, which resulted in the emergence of suburbia. Considering “incomes were normally higher in urban than in rural areas”, there was an increased movement of people from the north to the midlands and the south, as this was where earnings rose the highest. This resulted in “consumer purchasing power” being concentrated in urban and suburban areas.

Consumerism also influenced the class system; there was a rise of the middle class as more people had access to higher education, and the upper class declined as large estates and land were extremely expensive and the working class refused to be exploited for cheap labour. The majority of the population profited from new social policies introduced after the war; however, the working class benefited less, as “farm workers, domestic servants and shop assistants worked longer hours” than most other groups. In the 1960s, 96% of workers were granted annual paid holiday, and the working week was reduced to 5 days instead of 7. This allowed people to take part in more leisure activities, which led to the expansion of the leisure industry. There was also a steep increase in car ownership, as families had higher incomes and could travel to beaches and holiday parks in their free time. Increased car ownership led to government investment in road works and traffic systems, to make travel easier and safer.

Consumerism had a vast impact on family life in other respects; for example, the widespread integration of women into the working world opened new markets, which in turn fuelled industry. Family sizes decreased after the baby boom because women were going out to work; there was an “increasing desire and ability of parents to limit family size”, and this, along with new consumer goods like hoovers and cleaning equipment, has been said to have relieved women from the “burdens of household drudgery”. This transformed the typical role of men as the breadwinner; men now had to take up childcare duties, and help with domestic tasks around the home such as cleaning and food shopping.

As stated above, families could now afford to go on holiday together, and buy nicer furniture for their houses. New labour-saving devices were introduced to the consumer that were accessible and affordable, which allowed women more freedom as the time consumed cleaning the house and preparing family meals was decreasing. Pre-made meals could be preserved for longer in new fridges and freezers, and tinned food began to be mass produced. There was an increase in demands for convenience foods, which were used as “labour-saving alternatives to less highly processed products”, as they require “little time in preparation, give reliable results, bring out-of-season foods and a wider choice within the reach of consumers”. Food prices dropped as household expenditure dramatically decreased, and family patterns changed as people could now afford nutritionally balanced food previously reserved for upper classes. Cereal became a popular breakfast food as opposed to a full cooked meal, as mothers were heading out to work and needed to quickly feed their children before school. Lunch, which was previously the largest meal of the day, was also affected by women going out to work – with no one around to cook the meal during the day; dinner soon became the main meal after both parents returned from work. Diets also changed due to convenient consumer goods; two years prior to the end of rationing, Britons stuffed themselves with fatty foods and sugar, before moving on to a lighter diet – there was a “shift away from animal protein and fat towards more vegetable sources”. Decolonisation introduced new food and spices into the British food culture, and take-away restaurants and fast food chains became widespread across the country, which caused fears of obesity to mount throughout the 1960s.

Working-class mothers, who usually conducted the food shopping and oversaw looking after the household, held “economic power” and had a “decisive day-to-day influence over the scale, and nature, of consumer demand”. Women, through entering the labour market, had spending money of their own, and, thus, the fashion and beauty industries expanded. For certain middle-class women, “consumption became a site through which political action could be taken” through purchasing brooches and other commodities “bearing the legend ‘Am I not a man and a brother’”. They were another new consumer group, as with teenagers and pensioners, and were the orchestrators of domestic consumption. Producers understood the double burden of work and being a mother and household manager, and targeted women with the previously mentioned labour saving devices; fridges, cookers and electric cleaning devices like hoovers. However, despite women being involved in the public sphere and having more money at their disposal, their pay remained unequal to men. In 1975, “the average earnings of women were just a little more than half of those of men”. After the Second World War the government drove to restore women to domesticity, which did not hold up because as the labour market expanded, more workers were needed to fill in the jobs. There was a “massive influx of women into occupations and professions that were previously closed to them”, such as office work and teaching, and more married women than ever entered the workforce as it had previously been closed off to them due to the marriage bar. As women entered the public sphere, Britain experienced a fall in the birth rate and the “advent of voluntary child-bearing”, which alongside a rise in life expectancy had “many wide-reaching effects on family and individual life”. Instead of spending most of their lives bearing and nursing children, women after the war would have “completed her cycle of maturity and still have thirty-five or forty years of life ahead of her”.

In conclusion, post-war Britain experienced numerous changes and transitions that interlinked with the rise of consumerism. As well as “the decline of domestic service, the rise of suburban living and the development of consumer culture”, Britons were affected in almost every sphere; incomes rose, populations changed and moved around, new consumer groups emerged, family patterns changed, women began emerging from the private sphere and the class system was altered. Some historians believe that the rise of consumerism in the post-war period was a key influence which led to modernity; in the words of Bédarida, England’s “mask of formality was undergoing radical change” which resulted in “straitlaced austerity giving way to the bread and circuses of the new age of prosperity”.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Bédarida, F., A Social History of England 1851-1990 (Routledge: London, 1990)
• Benson, J. The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain, 1880-1980 (Longman: London, 1994)
• Burnett, J., Plenty and Want: A Social History of Food in England from 1815 to the Present Day (Routledge: London, 1998)
• Gurney, P., ‘The Battle of the Consumer in Post-war Britain’, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 77, No. 4 (2005)
• Hilton, M. ‘The Female Consumer and the Politics of Consumption in Twentieth-Century Britain’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2002)
• Martens, L., Casey, E. (eds.) Gender and Consumption: Domestic Cultures and the Commercialisation of Everyday Life, (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2007)