Living Standards in Britain 1900-2000: Women's Century?

Two composite measures are calculated to map improvements in living standards over the 20th century: the Dasgupta- Weale index and the Human Development Index. A gendered version of the latter is also considered. Indicators of income, leisure, inequality, wealth, health, education and political rights are included. The indices reveal a century of progress. But progress has been neither continuous nor uniformly shared. Downturns are evident in some of the indica tors since 1980, demonstrating that the gains are not immutable and need to be protected. Women's position has im proved if the end of the century is compared to its beginning, but there has been little change in women's position relative to men's over the last few decades on the dimensions considered here.