A household survey of unemployment in Ashington and Bedlington

Abstract

Boon G. T. (1974) A household survey of unemployment in Ashington and Bedlington, Reg. Studies 8, 175–184. A sample household survey of Ashington and Bedlington in 1970 is used to highlight difficulties in defining the unemployed and interpreting answers to questions devised to identify them. It is suggested that the unemployed be classified ordinally, the primary unemployed being defined as those willing and able to work, ceteris paribus, at lower real wages than others without work. Given an admittedly arbitrary definition of what constitutes lower real wages, the survey provides prima facie evidence that in mining areas, at least, registered unemployment over-estimates primary unemployment for men but substantially under-estimates it for women. Husbands' unemployment did not generally cause wives to look for work. Household survey costs are small compared to those of policies they could assist. An appendix compares more detailed characteristics of various classes of the unemployed with those of the emp...