ABSTRACT
Within each of the older industrial countries, where regional problems connected with coal mining have arisen, there have been very considerable differences between coalfields. The coal-fields with the highest productivity per man in their respective countries – the Campine field in Belgium, the Lorraine field in France, the Ruhr in Germany, the east Midlands in the United Kingdom and the Illinois field in the United States. In the sixties, some parts of west Durham where the degree of dependence on mining was above the average suffered a fall of almost 30 per cent in total male employment. South Wales is another severe case, though with marked local variations. West Durham's unemployment experiences were broadly similar to those of south Wales. In British and French cases, the coalfields' ratio of female to total employment has moved up much nearer to the national average, at the end of the sixties.
