Worker is an affluent society

The idea of the enquiry was to study the mutual impact of family life and industry, and that remained its central theme. However, the study very soon transcended its original aim, and became a study of social change, an enquiry into working and living conditions of the industrial worker, as they have been affected by post-war development. The change is very deep and far-reaching. Working-class life finds itself on the move towards new middle-class values and middle-class existence. When I com pared this situation with what I saw ten years ago when I wrote The British Worker (Penguin), the change can only be described as a deep transformation of values, as the development of new ways of thinking and feeling, a new ethos, new aspirations and cravings.

It is this transformation which is given priority in this study. The study had two distinct phases. One was a pilot enquiry sponsored by the Institute of Community Studies. This enquiry was conducted in May and June 1958 in the River Don Works of the English Steel Corporation Ltd in Sheffield (later referred to as 'Sheffield') and was based on open and informal interviews with the employees.