6 - THE REGIONAL PROBLEM

Summary

In a world in which industries rise and fall in response to new technologies and changing tastes, it would not be surprising to find disparities in employment opportunities and rates of unemployment in different locations at different times. But if the disparities are large, and even more if they are persistent, that would call for explanation. What we have seen in Britain since the end of the First World War is a pattern of relative unemployment rates in different parts of the country which has been remarkably persistent, albeit there have been changes which we shall note, and in two periods, the 1930s and 1980s, the differences have been very large. The areas of greatest growth (or smallest decline) in employment have, in the main, been in the South East and, until the 1970s, the Midlands, whereas the employment growth has been slower (or decline greater) and unemployment higher in the northern parts of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. There has, of course, been some net migration of jobs and of people from the less to the more prosperous regions, although not, so far, on a scale sufficient to eliminate the differences. Besides the movements between larger regions of the country, there have also been more localised movements, such as those from city centres to suburbs and beyond. And there has been a tendency for immigrants from different parts of the New Commonwealth to settle in particular towns and cities.