Black women’s work in late twentieth-century Britain: changes, continuities, and social mobility, c. 1970–2000


White, Jessica ORCID: 0000-0002-7572-5044 (2025) Black women’s work in late twentieth-century Britain: changes, continuities, and social mobility, c. 1970–2000. Contemporary British History, 39 (3). pp. 519-543. ISSN 1361-9462, 1743-7997

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Abstract

This article examines the changes and continuities in black women’s work from the 1970s until the late 1990s. Building on contemporary quantitative and qualitative data, it demonstrates that migrant black women suffered disproportionately from job losses in manufacturing in comparison to white women. It also shows that while the rate at which second-generation black women moved into the service sector outpaced all other worker groups, their opportunities for career advancement were still more limited compared to those of white women. By charting these changes and continuities to black women’s occupational experiences, this article also contributes to new histories of social mobility that have prevailed in the recent historiography of post-war Britain. In particular, it examines how race was an important determiner in the chances for upward social mobility. As such, this article advances our current understanding of social mobility in Britain by demonstrating that experiences of social mobility in post-war Britain were racialised, as well as gendered.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: 4303 Historical Studies, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, Generic health relevance
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 09 May 2025 07:12
Last Modified: 31 Aug 2025 22:50
DOI: 10.1080/13619462.2025.2485891
Open Access URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2025.2485891
Related Websites:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3191334
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