Privatised Families and their Homes

Abstract

It has been widely argued that life for the so-called ‘traditional’ working class was dominated by both paid and unpaid work to achieve a basic standard of living. Men worked long hours performing strenuous and sometimes dangerous work in occupations such as mining and fishing and in heavy manufacturing industries such as steel production (Walker, 1950; Horobin, 1957; Tunstall, 1962; Dennis et al., 1969). Yet, despite the harshness of their work, their shared experiences engendered a strong sense of solidarity amongst workers. They valued the companionship of workmates and sought their company in their leisure time too. Traditional working-class men, it was argued, belonged to an occupational community and their lifestyles took a communal form (Zwieg, 1961; Lockwood, 1966; Dennis et al., 1969).