Spatial Variations in Level of Living in England and Wales in 1961

Abstract

Despite a widespread interest in the search for and use of social indicators and a growing awareness of the problems and injustices of regional disparities in social welfare and economic health in England and Wales, the concept of level of living has been largely overlooked as a vehicle for research in these fields. The major aims of the paper are to determine, describe and classify spatial variations in level of living in England and Wales in I961. A definition of the concept of level of living applicable to the date and location of the study is formulated, and the concept is measured, indirectly, by a set of 53 variables. The major dimensions of level of living are established and analysed through the use of principal components analysis, and an overall measure of the concept is constructed from 'diagnostic' variables selected on the basis of a knowledge of the component structure. This is complemented by a typology of counties and county boroughs based on the diagnostic variables and derived from a cluster analysis and multiple discriminant analysis of their data. NATIONAL and regional well-being in western societies has traditionally been assessed by reference to income levels, together with rates of unemployment, demographic growth and industrial growth. Recently, however, there has been an increasing awareness that these indicators may reflect only some of the elements of prosperity, welfare and opportunity relevant to the quality of life in such societies, implying that any satisfactory examination of relative wellbeing should also consider aspects of socio-economic health and social welfare. Indicators of national social conditions are in fact currently being developed both in Britain and the United States, in an attempt to provide social statistics comparable in scope and accuracy with existing series of economic statistics. The ultimate aim is to develop a set of social indicators which could be related to national economic policy in much the same way as economic indicators such as the cost of living index have been developed in order to help guide national economic policy (Bauer, 1966; Moser, 1971). At the regional level, less progress has been made towards measuring variations in social conditions. In Britain, the examination of regional disparities was, until the mid-196os, based largely on a consideration of the more immediately apparent variations in unemployment, migration, and money income (Holmans, I965; Self, I965; Thirlwall, I966). Among the first to note more widespread socio-economic disparities were Coates and Rawstron (1966), who have recently emphasized the lack of an existing framework for the systematic measurement of socio-economic conditions within Britain (Coates and Rawstron, 197I). This desire for a greater knowledge of regional variations in social welfare (in its widest sense) is not without precedent. In 1970, for example, Chisholm suggested the compilation of a social atlas of Great Britain, dealing with subjects such as the availability of medical services, rates of crime, educational provision and achievement, and the use of State and local authority welfare services (Chisholm, 1970). In view of the widespread interest in the search for social indicators and a growing concern for the problems and injustices of regional disparities in social welfare, it is somewhat surprising that research workers in these fields have almost entirely overlooked the concept of level of living. Throughout a long doctrinal history in economics and sociology, level of living has been regarded This content downloaded from 157.55.39.211 on Mon, 08 Aug 2016 06:05:21 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms