Michael Clarke - Citizens Financial Futures: Regulation of Retail Investment Financial Services in Britain

Such is the concern with international competition today that the more or less sustained pattern of postwar economic growth averaging 2.4 per cent per annum is frequently ignored. Whilst Britain became less affluent than its reference nations in the early postwar years the USA then France, Germany and Japan and more recently the Asian Tiger economies sustained growth has produced a social and economic transformation.

The occupational class structure has shifted progressively towards white collar work, with its traditionally better working conditions, fringe benefits, including occupational pension schemes, job security and promotion prospects. Whilst expansion has been greater in terms of numbers in the lower white collar occupations which have come to sustain weaker career development prospects as they have expanded, the fastest and most sustained growth has been in the upper sectors. The following tables show the process of transformation. The allocation of occupations to agreed social classes is now a professional expertise in its own right, the details of which are beyond the scope of this chapter. Regrettably the outcome is that it is difficult to obtain full time series before academic research has taken place. hence abuts Rouths comparison of the 1951 and the 1981 figures with the Registrar Generals classifications in the last two national censuses. The figures differ but the trend is confirmed.

It is not simply the rise of the middle classes to constitute nearly half the population that is significant however, but the spread of affluence more widely. By the mid-1950s the identification of affluent workers in modern industries such as vehicles, aircraft, chemicals and light engineering began to generate increasing debate. First it was pointed out that these workers were earning as much or even more than those in white collar jobs, albeit sometimes because of consistently available overtime. Further, it was recognized, not least by those industries ready to offer products and services for these workers additional income, that a shift in consumption patterns and lifestyle was taking place, which affected not only the expanding middle classes but the affluent working classes too. At a lower level the spread of household appliances and fittings vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators, freezers, food processors, telephones, televisions and fitted carpets was progressive to the point where, for example, only the exceptional family in the 1950s would have had a television where in the 1990s a family reliant on state benefit would expect to have one, and of course a much larger one with colour reception. At the more substantial end of expenditure affluence was manifested in the growth of home and car ownership and the rise of foreign holidays, assisted by the creation of the package holiday. Although Thomas Cook is generally credited with founding the foreign tour industry in 1841 the true package holiday was dependent on the modern passenger jet aircraft. The first package holiday was put together by the founder of Horizon Holidays in 1950. Civil Aviation Authority figures indicate a rise in package holidays to 2.7m in 1970,6.25m in 1980 and 12.0m in 1990. The International Passenger Survey for the Office of National Statistics gives the following picture for recent years.