Section 1 - The Sample

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Section 1 .
The Sample

The enquiry was planned on a basis of 2,000 interview, but 2,294 interviews were obtained owing to the excellent co-operation of industry and business.

The distribution of the sample was made in order to represent the larger industrial groups and the principal regions in which these industries are found.

Interviews were arranged in both old established and newly established industrial areas. In the latter interviews were made with children who were living away from home, either in lodgings or in a hostel. The results of the Survey, however, showed that there were not enough children to warrant treating them as a separate group.

The following is the distribution of the interviews as planned. (Table 1)

Table 1

Distribution of Interviews

Industry	Old Established Area	Newly developed Area	Sex	Number
Clerical	-	Blackpool	Female	100
	London		Female	100
	Glasgow		Female	100
					300
Distributive	London		Female	100
	Manchester		Female	100
	Glasgow		Female	100
					300
Textiles	Preston		Female	100
	Huddersfield		Female	100
	Leicester		Female	100
					300
Repetition Engineering	Birmingham		Male & female	75
		Acton, Ealing Luton, Letchworth	Male & female	300
		Coventry	Male & female	100
		Co. Durham	Male & female	50
		Blackpool	Male & female	75
					600
Heavy Engineering	Middlesbrough		Male	100
	Newcastle		Male	100
	Glasgow		Male	100
					300
Mining	Blyth Ashington, Northumberland		Male	100
	Stanley and Consett Co. Durham		Male	100
					200
				Total	2,000

More interviews than the planned number were obtained in Engineering, Textiles and Clerical occupations and less in Mining and Distribution. Details are given in Table 2 and the distribution by sex and age are given in the Abstract Table 3.

Table 2

Number of Interviews

Breakdown by Industry, Sex and Age

Industry	Age	Male	Total Male	Female	Total Female		Totals
Engineering Light	14	94		31		125
	15	122		55		177
	16	141		53		194
	17	103		56		159
	18	53		33		86
	Over 18	11		5		16
Total			524		233			757
Engineering Heavy	14	37		3		40
	15	80		2		82
	16	116				116
	17	77				77
	18	35				35
	Over 18	1				1
Total			346			5		351
Textiles
Wool	14	6		34		40
	15	10		44		54
	16	9		31		40
	17	3		34		37
	18			10		10
	Over 18
			28		153		181
Cotton	14			10		10
	15			27		27
	16			29		29
	17			30		30
	18			14		14
	Over 18			14		14
					110		110
Hosiery	14	1		6		7
	15			19		19
	16			8		8
	17			11		11
	18			5		5
	Over 18			-		-
			1		49		50	341
Mining Surface	14	2				2
	15	2				2
	16	6				6
	17	14				14
	18	11				11
	Over 18
			35				35
3 Mining Surface	14	39				39
	15	39				39
	16	27				27
	17	26				26
	18	14				14
	Over 18
			145				145	180
Clerical Industrial	14	5		7		12
	15	9		5		14
	16	3		7		10
	17	6		8		14
	18			2		2
	Over 18
			23		29		52
Business	14	6		25		31
	15	7		62		69
	16	16		81		97
	17	10		63		73
	18	2		44		46
	Over 18
			41		275		316	368
Distributive	14			43		43
	15	2		60		62
	16	3		66		69
	17	2		55		57
	18			36		36
	Over 18
			7		260			267
Miscellaneous Factory	14
	15			3		3
	16			1		1
	17			1		1
	18			2		2
	Over 18
					7			7
	Totals		1,150		1,121			2,271

Table 3

Analysis by Sex and Age

Abstract from Table 2

Age	Male	Female	Total
14	190	159	349
15	271	277	548
16	321	276	597
17	241	256	497
18	115	148	263
Over 18	12	5	17
	1,150		2,271

Jobs

A further analysis of the interviews according to the type of work done has been made and the results are given below in Tables 4 and 5.

(Note: in these and subsequent tables small discrepancies occur in the totals of various analysis, these result from the failure of certain children to answer all the questions and in other case from faults in mechanical tabulation).

Table 4

Breakdown by Sex and Age

BOYS

	14		15		16		17		18		Over 18		Total
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Mines: Surface	37	19.5	39	14.4	27	8.5	25	10.4	13	11.3	-	-	141	12.3
Mines: Underground	4	2.1	2	0.7	6	1.9	15	6.2	12	10.4	-	-	39	3.4
Engineering: Woodwork (Pattern making)	-	-	4	1.5	5	1.6	3	1.2	1	0.9	-	-	13	1.1
Engineering: Foundry	13	6.8	20	7.4	20	6.2	10	4.2	4	3.5	-	-	67	5.8
Engineering: Machine operations	76	40.0	137	50.6	202	63.0	151	62.7	72	62.7	9		647	56.3
Engineering: Assembly	8	4.2	8	2.9	15	4.6	2	0.8	9	7.8	2		44	3.8
Engineering: Odd Jobs (e.g. store, packing, loading)	30	15.8	27	10.0	15	4.6	11	4.6	2	1.7	1		86	7.5
Textiles: All jobs (except clerical)	7	3.7	10	3.7	9	2.8	3	1.2	-	-	-		29	2.5
Distributive: all jobs (expert clerical	-	-	2	0.7	3	0.9	2	0.8	-	-	-		7	0.6
Clerical: all jobs	11	5.8	19	7.0	18	5.6	18	7.5	2	1.7	-		68	5.9
Other Factory jobs	4	2.1	3	1.1	0.3	1	0.4	-	-	-			9	0.8
TOTAL	190	100	271	100	321	100	241	100	115	100	12		1,150	100

Table 5

Breakdown by Sex and Age

GIRIS

	14		15		16		17		18		Over 18		Total
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Mines: Surface	2	1.3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	0.2
Mines: Underground	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Engineering: Woodwork (Pattern making)	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	0.4	-	-	-	-	1	0.1
Engineering: Foundry	-	-	-	-	1	0.4	1	0.4	-	-	-	-	2	0.2
Engineering: Machine Operations	19	12.2	33	12.0	34	12.3	39	15.1	28	18.9	2		155	13.8
Engineering: Assembly	11	7.1	20	7.3	11	4.0	14	5.4	7	4.7	2		65	5.8
Engineering: Odd jobs (e.g. store, packing, loading)	1	0.6	2	0.7	8	2.9	6	2.3	-	-	1		18	1.6
Textiles: all jobs (except clerical)	49	31.4	90	32.7	68	24.6	75	28.9	29	19.6	-		311	27.8
Distributive: all jobs (except clerical)	45	31.4	90	32.7	68	24.6	75	28.9	29	19.6	-		311	27.8
Distributive: all jobs (except clerical)	45	28.8	60	21.8	66	23.9	46	17.8	35	23.7	-		252	22.5
Clerical: All jobs	29	18.6	66	24.0	86	31.2	75	28.9	47	31.8	-		303	27.1
Other Factory Jobs	-	-	4	1.5	2	0.7	2	0.8	2	1.3	-		10	0.9
TOTAL	156	100	275	100	276	100	259	100	148	100	5		1,119	100

Children Living in Lodgings, Hostels and at Home

Question 1, “Do you live at home, in digs, or in a hostel”? and Question 2, “Is this your home town”? were asked in order to provide a basis for a comparison of the feeding habits of children within their family and outside it.

Although several of the districts in which interviews were conducted were chosen especially because they were places which have had a considerable influx of labour since the war the proportion of children in the sample living away from home was only 4%. This group was too small to justify separate treatment.

The reasons for this are, it is believed, the lack of mobility of very young workers, and the fact that our sample came mainly from small firms (The Ministry of Labour has ordered canteens to be provided in firms with over 200 employees) which do not organise large scale movements of juveniles or provide or arrange accommodation (Table 6).

Table 6

Question 1“Do you live at home, in digs, or in hostel”?

Breakdown by Sex

	At Home		In Digs		In a Hostel		Total
Boys	1,101	95.3	51	4.4	3	0.3	1.155
Girls	1,092	96.6	36	3.2	2	0.2	1,130
Total	2,193	96.0	87	3.8	5	0.2	2,285

An analysis by industry showed that of the 92 juveniles living away from home, 63 of them were engaged in Light Engineering, this number being over 8% of the total.

The answers to Question 2 show that over 10% of the sample were living away from their home towns (Table 7). This proportion is larger than that of children living away from home because in many cases the family had moved from the original home town.

Table 7

Question 2 - “Is this your home town”?