1 NEW SURVEY OF LONDON LIFE AND LABOR, 1929-1931 (ICPSR 8539) Principal Investigator Barry Eichengreen Harvard University First ICPSR Release Winter 1987 Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research P.O. Box 1248 Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 âHard copy documentation transformed into machine-readable text utilizing Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Scanning, February 1991ã 1 1 BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION Publications based on ICPSR data collections should acknowledge those sources by means of bibliographic citations. To ensure that such source attributions are captured for social science bibliographic utilities, citations must appear in footnotes or in the reference section of publications. The bibliographic citation for this data collection is: Eichengreen, Barry. NEW SURVEY OF LONDON LIFE AND LABOR, 1929-1931 âComputer fileã. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research âdistributorã, 1987. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON USE OF ICPSR RESOURCES To provide funding agencies with essential information about use of archival resources and to facilitate the exchange of information about ICPSR participants' research activities, users of ICPSR data are requested to send to ICPSR bibliographic citations for each completed manuscript or thesis abstract. Please indicate in a cover letter which data were used. DATA DISCLAIMER The original collector of the data, ICPSR, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for uses of this collection or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses. 1 1 ICPSR 8539 Page 1 DATA COLLECTION DESCRIPTION Eichengreen, Barry. NEW SURVEY OF LONDON LIFE AND LABOR, 1929-1931 (ICPSR 8539) SUMMARY: This dataset provides information on unemployment and labor-force participation among working class residents of interwar London. Variables include information on household composition, hours worked both last week and in a full week, last week's earnings and full week's wages, weekly cost of transport to and from work, receipt of unemployment benefits, pension income, poor relief, amount of rent, and income from other sources such as subletting rooms. CLASS IV UNIVERSE: Working class residents of London. SAMPLING: Ten percent sample of the New Survey of London Life and Labor plus a supplementary sample of 50 percent of the households containing at least one unemployed person. EXTENT OF COLLECTION: 1 data file DATA FORMAT: Logical Record Length FILE STRUCTURE: rectangular CASES: 13,628 VARIABLES: 30 RECORD LENGTH: 95 RECORDS PER CASE: 1 RELATED PUBLICATIONS: Eichengreen, Barry, and Susan Freiwald. "From Survey to Sample: Labor Market Data for Interwar Britain." HISTORICAL METHODS 18 (Fall 1985), 125-136. Eichengreen, Barry. "Unemployment in Interwar London: A Microeconomic Perspective." JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY HISTORY (forthcoming). 1 Page 2 ICPSR 8539 1 ICPSR 8539 Page 3 Col. 1-4 Contain the household number. Since a separate line of code is de- to every individual, the number of lines with the same household number corresponds to the number of household members (provided in Col. 91). Number of household members may differ from number of family members, as explained in the discussion of Col. 9-10. Lodgers are included as household members only when they are con- sidered an integral part of the household by the investigator, as evidenced by: 1) the decision to include them on the same survey record card, and 2) the fact that no separate payment for lodging was recorded Col 6-7 Contain borough of residence. Borough numbers are: 1. Wandsworth 20. Chelsea 2. West Ham 21. Deptford 3. Acton 22. Hampstead 4. Westminster 23. Fulham 5. Southward 24. Backney 6. Barking 25. Paddington 7. Shoreditch 26. Leyton 8. Bethnal Green 27. Lewisham 9. Camberwell 30. Bermondsey 10. Woolwich 31. Lambeth North 11. Battersea 32. Lambeth South 12. Stoke Newington 33. Holborn 13. St. Pancras 34. Hornsey 14. Willesden 35. Finsbury 15. Stepney 36. Kensington 16. Islington 37. Hammersmith 17. St. Marylebone 38. Greenwich 18. East Ham 19. Poplar Col. 9-10 Contain the number of individuals in the family. It differs from the number of household members either because of the presence of an unrelated lodger who is an integral part of the household or because of the absence of a family member for whom wage information is given but who lives away from home. Col. 12 A one indicates that the individual was a wage earner. Except in certain special cases, we were guided by the interviewer's decision of whether to enter the individual in the sections of the card devoted to wage earners or non-wage earners, and not the presence or absence of wages. We depart from the investigator's designations of wage earners only in the following cases. Very old pensioners (usually over 70 years) classified as wage earners but for whom no wage information was provided and who appeared to be dependents of other family members were reclassified as retired. Any long-term incapacitated persons classified as wage earners but for whom no wage information was provided, whose status (e.g., permanent invalid) made it seem unlikely that they would re-enter the labor force, and who appeared to be dependents of other family members were reclassi- fied as out of the labor force. Elderly wage earners (i.e., those over 65) listed as long-term unemployed with no wage income are 1 Page 4 ICPSR 8539 reclassified as retired. In most instances, of course, these same conventions appear to have been followed by the investigators them- selves. Col. 14 Indicates whether or not the individual was the household head. In most cases, the husband or single parent was the head. Only in cases where the parent or parents were aged pensioners did we denote the eldest child as head. Col. 16 Indicates each individual's relationship to the household head, where 1 = Husband (or male head with wife) 2 = Wife 3 = Son 4 = Daughter 5 = Grandparent 6 = Single head of household 7 = Other Step relations are not distinguished from blood relations. Common law husband and wife are given the same status as legal couples. "Other" denotes lodgers who were integral household members, nephews, nieces, sons- and daughers-in-law, and aged dependent parents of childless couples (to distinguish them from grandparents). Col. 18 Indicates gender (0 = male, 1 = female). Cols.20-21 Contain the individual's age. Unreported ages are indicated by a blank. To distinguish them from individuals with missing information, ages of babies less than one year old are rounded up to one. Col. 23 Two samples were drawn from the New Survey, a 10-percent sample of the entire collection of survey record cards, and a supplementary 50 percent sample of cards containing information on at least one unemployed individual not included in the basic 10 percent sample. Column 23 indicates the sample (0 = 10 percent sample of entire survey, 1 = 50 percent survey of unemployed not included in the 10 percent survey). Cols.25-26 Indicate, for wage earners, the weekly cost of transport to and from work. The first column denotes shillings and the second column pence. For example, "60" indicates a weekly cost of six shillings and no pence. To conserve space, eleven pence are rounded up to one shilling and ten pence are rounded down to nine pence. Cols.28-29 Indicate hours worked last week. Cols.31-32 Indicate hours worked in a full week. Cols.33-38 Contain the value of the last week's earnings. Columns 33-35 contain shillings; columns 37-38 pence. Column 36 is blank. The last week's earnings equal zero for non-wage earners, for those who did not work during the last week due to unemployment, incapacitation, or both, for those for whom no information was provided, and for those for 1 ICPSR 8539 Page 5 whom only an average was provided. Cols.39-44 Contain the full week's wage. Columns 39-41 contain shillings; columns 43-44 pence. A zero was entered for wage earners for whom there was no information about wages and those for whom no full week's wages were given. Since last week's and full week's wages were the same in the majority of cases where both figures were reported, it appears that, in some such instances, investigators simply entered both values under last week's wages. Col. 46 Contains a dummy variables that takes on a value of unity if there is evidence that earnings were imputed. Earning that were not re- ported in the course of the interview were imputed by the survey office. Cols.48-51 Contain state insurance deductions, with shillings in column 48 and pence in columns 50-51. Voluntary contributions to heald insurance and other insurance schemes are not included in this field. Con- tributions were inputed, based on statutory rates, to those for whom no information was provided in the appropriate space but where other indications of contributions are present. Thus, contributions were imputed to unemployed workers known to be receiving unemployment insurance benefits, and in cases where the investigator or the cen- tral survey office noted separately on the card that the individual contributed to the system. In a small number of cases, unemployed workers may have received benefits even though they had not pre- viously contributed to the system because they were automatically covered by virtue of their occupation (crown servants, for example, were so covered). Thus, contributions may have been inappropriately imputed to a new unemployed individuals for whom no details on occupation are reported. The next three zero-one dummy variables were not provided by the survey but constructed from information appearing there. Col. 53 A one appears whenever an insurance deduction was estimated by the central survey office or in constructing the sample. Col. 55 A one appears if the individual is unemployed. Unemployed individuals were those who did not work in the last week because of lack of work or ill health and who were wage earners rather than dependent or retired persons. Since the survey refers to the last week, indivi- duals who worked the entire last week but who reported themselves as unemployed during the week the survey was taken are not considered unemployed. Col. 57 A one appears if the individual is in receipt of unemployment benefits. Cols.59-62 Contain the value of unemployment benefits received. Benefits some- times appear as "dole" or "employment exchange." They vary not only by age, gender, and number and type of dependents, as mandated by statute at any point in time, but also because standard rates of benefit were changed during the period in which the survey was 1 Page 6 ICPSR 8539 conducted. Shillings appear in the first two columns; pence are in the last two. Cols. 64 A one appears if the individual was denoted sick or incapacitated by the central survey office. Those who were unemployed and in receipt of national health insurance or panel money instead of unemployment benefits are classified as incapacitated rather than unemployed. In- capacitated individuals who received sick pay from their employers and had jobs to go back to are similarly classified as incapacitated rather than unemployed. Only sick wage earners out of work who did not have jobs to go back to were classified both as incapacitated and unemployed. Permanently incapacitated individuals are denoted wage earners only if receiving wages; they however are not labeled unem- ployed. Permanently incapacitated persons without wages, even when placed by the investigator in the portion of the survey record card intended for wage earners, are reclassified as dependents and non- wage earners. Non-wage earners are never recorded as incapacitated since only scattered information was provided on such individuals. Cols.66-69 Contain pension information. Shillings are in the first two col- umns; pence in the last two. This includes income from old age pensions, army pensions, widow's pensions, and retirement pensions. As with all other forms of income that did not obviously accrue to a particular household member, otherwise unattributable pensions are attached to the record of the household head. Cols.71-74 Contain poor and parish relief, with shillings in the first two columns and pence in the last two. Poor relief was sometimes labeled "Guardian's relief" or "public assistance." When poor relief was received in the form of food, its estimated monetary value was often provided on the survey record card. Cols.76-79 Contain income from subletting rooms to lodgers. This includes only income from rooms. Income from providing meals to lodgers, when present, is recorded as other income in columns 81-84. Shillings are in the first two columns; pence are in the last two. Cols.81-84 Contain, in addition to income from food provided lodgers, other income including money from family members not resident in the house- hold. (No intra-household monetary transactions are included.) It also contains income from odd jobs completed by an otherwise em- ployed household member, and national health insurance benefits or sick pay. Shillings are in the first two columns; pence in the last two. Cols.86-89 Contain rent. When rent and rates are reported separately, the sum of these items is recorded on the assumption that the renter knew the value of rates because he or she was responsible for paying them. When rent-free housing was provided by the employer and its value given, that value is reported in this field and also added to the household head's wage income. Shillings are in the first two columns; pence are in the last two. The last three variables provide information on accommodation on the 1 ICPSR 8539 Page 7 head-of-household line: Col. 91 Gives the number of individuals actually living in the space described. (See the discussion of columns 9-10.) Col. 93 Gives number of bedrooms in the residence. These are formal bedrooms, not including kitchens and parlors also used as bedrooms. Col. 95 A one appears if the home was owned. Households where no rent is coded and without a one in this column refused to furnish information on rent.