ABSTRACT

This chapter uses detailed evidence from the Beverley oral histories to examine the claim that the working classes became 'privatised' during the post-war decades of 'affluence', replacing wider sociability and extended family support with an increasing emphasis on spouse and children. Alongside the separation of male and female social worlds in 'traditional working-class communities', post-war social investigators noted husbands' limited involvement in bringing up their children. It seems likely that as living standards improved, not just in the post-war period but also more broadly across the twentieth century, new kinds of relationship between material considerations and family life came increasingly to the fore. Certainly, family size became more and more a matter of choice for working-class couples across the twentieth century; parents with fewer children could focus more of their time and money on each child.