The Welfare State Generation

Women, Agency and Class in Britain since 1945

Dr Eve Worth (University of Oxford, UK.), Lucy Noakes (University of Essex UK), Rohan McWilliam (Anglia Ruskin University UK) , Sasha Handley (University of Manchester UK)

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
27 July 2023

British & Irish history; Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000; Social & cultural history; Oral history; Social welfare & social services

Series: New Directions in Social and Cultural History

Women born in mid twentieth-century Britain were the ‘welfare state generation’ – not only were their lives fundamentally shaped by the welfare state, they helped to transform it. In this ground-breaking work, Eve Worth examines the impact of the welfare state on the life course of women whose opportunities and social experiences were formed by it in the post-1945 period.

Centred around an oral history study, this book argues that the welfare state was so central to the lives of women born in Britain between the late 1930s and early 1950s that they should be considered the ‘welfare state generation’. The post-war expansion of the welfare state was one of the most transformative political changes of the twentieth century, yet we know little about its development in practice, nor its long-term impact on those who grew up within it. Using a ground-breaking life history methodology to examine women from their birth in the long 1940s to retirement in the mid-2010s, it includes thirty-six original life history interviews alongside

social surveys and the Census for wider context By deploying a cross-class approach, this book moves the discussion on from just looking at university-educated women, to include women often overlooked in gender and social studies.

Re-conceptualising the causes of social mobility in post-war Britain, exploring a new understanding of work and an updated periodisation of welfare state development, The Welfare State Generation offers a new approach to the history of class and gender, arguing that we need to move beyond the focus on women’s emotions and personal identity, to consider their experiences and relationships with the state as employer, educator and provider.

By: Dr Eve Worth (University of Oxford UK.)
Edited by: Lucy Noakes (University of Essex UK), Rohan McWilliam (Anglia Ruskin University UK), Sasha Handley (University of Manchester UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781350192102
ISBN 10: 1350192104
Series: New Directions in Social and Cultural History
Pages: 260
Publication Date: 27 July 2023
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Eve Worth is Junior Research Fellow in History, St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, UK.

Reviews for The Welfare State Generation: Women, Agency and Class in Britain since 1945

In this outstanding book, Eve Worth revisions the history of class, gender and the British welfare state by centring the lives of women born in the long 1940s. Writing with exceptional lucidity and authority, Worth succeeds brilliantly in recasting existing narratives of social and political change in contemporary Britain. --Helen McCarthy, Reader in Modern and Contemporary British History, University of Cambridge, UK.