A Very Peculiar Practice: Underemployment in Britain during the Interwar Years

S. Bowden; D.M. Higgins; C. Price

doi:10.1017/S1361491605001590

A Very Peculiar Practice: Underemployment in Britain during the Interwar Years

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Abstract

This article presents new evidence on the determinants of short-time working in Britain during the interwar period. Using a selection of manufacturing industries we test the impact that output volatility, the benefit-wage ratio, and trade union density had on short-time working. We find that persistence effects (captured by lagged values of output fluctuation) and gender differences in trade union density were important for a number of industries. However, perhaps our most interesting finding is that the benefit-wage ratio also exercised a statistically significant impact on short-time working. This suggests that the Benjamin-Kochin thesis may be important after all. In other words, the army of short-time workers that existed in Britain between the Wars may, indeed, have been a ‘volunteer army’.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	89-108
Number of pages	19
Journal	European Review of Economic History
Volume	10
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S1361491605001590
Publication status	Published - 2006

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10.1017/S1361491605001590

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1361491605001590

Cite this

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title = "A Very Peculiar Practice: Underemployment in Britain during the Interwar Years",

abstract = "This article presents new evidence on the determinants of short-time working in Britain during the interwar period. Using a selection of manufacturing industries we test the impact that output volatility, the benefit-wage ratio, and trade union density had on short-time working. We find that persistence effects (captured by lagged values of output fluctuation) and gender differences in trade union density were important for a number of industries. However, perhaps our most interesting finding is that the benefit-wage ratio also exercised a statistically significant impact on short-time working. This suggests that the Benjamin-Kochin thesis may be important after all. In other words, the army of short-time workers that existed in Britain between the Wars may, indeed, have been a {\textquoteleft}volunteer army{\textquoteright}.",

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