When futures end: a regional-level inquiry into the consequences of deindustrialisation

At the core of my proposal is a desire to build a better understanding of the nature of deindustrialisation, and in particular, how structural unemployment has manifested itself in living standards and economic problems across industries, regions, and generations. We economic and social historians need to ask ourselves what we really mean when we talk about decline in a late-19th and 20th century context-and indeed, how it should be measured. I believe that income measures alone are inadequate, and as such should be supplemented with indicators capturing education, health, and longevity. The assembly of a comprehensive dataset-and the execution of a robust quantitative
analysis-is my project's primary aim. Comparing different industries and regions, my work will uncover the political, economic, and geographical mechanics that explain the various deindustrialisation experiences.
Specific statistical tools aside, my work's complexity lies in the approaches used to produce meaningful results from the data. This project is not merely a cataloguing exercise, thus explaining how the damage has been done (and mitigated against) will be just as important as quantifying the damage itself.
Here, my work will adapt methodologies used by historians of migration and industrialisation (drawing in particular on the fatherlessness and intergenerational literature of the latter) to build a comprehensive picture of the forces that have driven outcomes (and, indeed, their persistence) in post-industrial Britain. Industrial unemployment has a special place in Britain's political discourse. Even in my own home town-a textbook case of decline in Greater Merseyside-few conversations had on the doorstep during a campaign will occur without the mention of decline and regional divides. With Brexit occupying an enormous amount of energy and time, the plight of communities 'left behind' has garnered renewed interest in political circles, although too often it manifests itself in unsubstantiated rhetoric. This project matters precisely because it gets to the heart of these political and economic issues-allowing us to understand not only persistent poverty and the plight of communities but also the political causes and effects-providing important answers for policymakers and wider society.
This also a debate that matters for economic and social history research. Not only does the study of working-class living standards, migration, and experiences break new ground in the deindustrialisation literature, it equally provides material that can inform work on gender, the family, and urban change. It will produce testable results for economists, as well as develop a methodology that can be applied when examining other deindustrialisations-particularly that of the American 'rust belt'.