12 9 13 11

What clothes the informants bought for their own use with their coupons

Informants were asked what civilian clothes they had bought for their demobilisation and since (question 10). The numbers of garments of different sorts that were bought, and the number of coupons spent on them, were recorded. The interviewers used a printed list of items to help informants remember what they had bought. The usual coupon values for each garment were given as a guide to interviewers, and when an informant did not know how many coupons had been spent on a garment further particulars were asked, and the number was assessed. This was only done when the informant’s memory failed, in order to complete the information.

The numbers of garments of each sort that were bought and the number of coupons spent on them, were counted for the whole of each sample and also for each of the groups used for analysis. The figures for the whole samples are given below. No noteworthy differences were found in the figures for the separate groups.

In the following table the items of clothing bought have been divided into four main groups. The third column shows the percentage of all the coupons spent by informants on themselves that was spent on each item. The fourth column shows the total of these percentages for each group of items of clothing.

Informants were also asked the number of coupons they had left at the time of the interview (question 15). In some cases where the coupons were put into a family supply, or where a proxy answered the questions, the number was not known, so that the total of coupons left is incomplete. The numbers for which there is no information are shown in the third column of the table below.

The last column shows an estimate of the percentage of all coupons received that were still not spent. In making this estimate it was assumed that the average number of coupons received by those answering “don’t know” was the same as the average for the whole of their group. This average was multiplied by the number of persons in the group who answered “don’t know” and the product subtracted from the total number of coupons received by the group. The number of coupons left, as shown in the fifth column of the table below, was then expressed as a percentage of the resulting figure.

It appears that the unoccupied men had a comparatively high proportion of their coupons left, but it should be remembered that these were mainly the men who had most recently been demobilised.

The men with dependents had spent more of their coupons than those who had no dependents.

On the average the man and the women used up their rations at much the same rate.

The men had spent an average of 61 coupons per head on themselves, and the women 111; what proportion of these were their own coupons is not known. Some had probably been given to informants, and some were taken out of a family supply, but the expenditure of these coupons could not be separated from the use of the informant's own coupons. For this reason, even where the informant did not contribute to or draw from a family supply, the numbers of coupons spent on informants and on other people, and the number left, cannot be balanced against the number that was received.

About a third of the coupons that the men spent on themselves, and rather less than half of the women’s, were spent on the main items of outerwear. Another third of the men’s coupons were spent on smaller items of outerwear, shirts, socks, etc. The women spent rather less than a quarter of their coupons on equivalent garments. Men and women both spent about a sixth of their coupons on underwear, nightwear and handkerchieves. The proportion spent on underwear was higher for men, and that spent on nightwear was higher for women. The women spent on stockings nearly double the proportion that was spent by the men on socks.