Affluent Worker in the Class Structure: a Digitised Sample of the Luton Study, 1961-1962

<p>Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.</p>The 'Affluent Worker' project was undertaken to test empirically the thesis of working class embourgeoisement. The research studied the attitudes and behaviour of high wage earners in three mass or continous flow companies. During 1961-1962, married, male workers from three Luton factories (Vauxhall, Skefco and Laporte) were firstly interviewed at work and then, again, at home with their wives. Additionally, a sample of middle-class white-collar workers from the same companies were interviewed only at home.<br> <br> This qualitative data collection comprises a digitised subset of the Luton study interviews, (see below for details of the full collection). For this subset, 30 married male Vauxhall workers' completed questionnaires were selected from boxes 01 and 02 from the full collection, as the handwriting on the original papers was legible, and follow-up home interviews were available as well as the initial workplace interview. The resulting data have been collated into tabular form, within an MS Access database. The tables replicate the structure and variables of the questionnaires used in the original study. Street, place and personal names were standardised by the original investigators, and care has been taken to retain original spellings. The subset database therefore contains a total of 60 interviews, each with 464 variables. This research formed part of a wider ESRC project <a href="http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-061-23-0032/read" title="Living Standards, social identities and the working class in England, c.1945-c.1970">Living Standards, social identities and the working class in England, c.1945-c.1970</a>.<br> <br> The full Affluent Worker data collection (including a set of interviews conducted in Cambridge as a pilot prior to the main Luton study) is held at the <a href="http://libwww.essex.ac.uk/speccol.htm#NSPSCA" title="National Social Policy and Social Change Archive">National Social Policy and Social Change Archive</a>, part of the Albert Sloman Library Special Collections, based at the University of Essex. The materials are paper based and authorised copies are permitted as copyright is retained by the University of Essex. Consultation is by appointment only.<br><B>Main Topics</B>:<br>Social attitudes, family life, social mobility, employment, lifestyle, education, social class