ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twentieth century the factory worker, the miner and the railway man could stand as symbols of the working population. There has also been a shift towards white-collar jobs in manufacturing, which has further increased the proportion of middle-class jobs in the population. Manual workers had a degree of choice between high earnings and job satisfaction, subject to the broad constraints on job choice imposed by education and the early years of work. In contrast with many manual workers, most of those in non-manual jobs, according to surveys, experience relatively high levels of job satisfaction. In non-manual work, which had always enjoyed relatively better conditions, firms such as banks and insurance companies, and certain retail chains, have provided the best benefits. This century has seen an increase in the time most people have available for leisure, although the increase has been surprisingly slow given the rise in the economy's productive capacity.
