Socio-economic Decline and Adaptation: South Yorkshire's Former Coalfields

Robert Murray, James Baldwin, Keith Ridgway and Belinda Winder
Additional contact information
Robert Murray: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Sheffield, UK
James Baldwin: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Sheffield, UK
Keith Ridgway: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Sheffield, UK
Belinda Winder: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Sheffield, UK

Local Economy, 2005, vol. 20, issue 4, 344-359

Abstract: Two decades after the year-long miners' strike of 1984/5, this paper presents a contemporary account of the social and economic situation faced by ex-miners in South Yorkshire, uncovering those factors that continue to inhibit new employment and adaptation following the contraction of the coal industry. Forty-one in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with men who had worked in the region's coal mining industry for varying periods of time. The interviews were designed to examine many of the problems that have emerged following deindustrialisation and assess appraisals of retraining provision and prospects for employment. Findings increase understanding of issues endemic to many former pit villages including continuing high levels of localised unemployment and disproportionately high numbers of incapacity benefit claimants. A greater understanding of the reluctance of individuals to adapt, retrain and seek new, alternative employment will lead to more successful methods of dealing with the problems associated with continuing economic inactivity in the region's former coalfield communities and has many important consequences for existing regeneration programmes and employment initiatives.

Date: 2005
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/02690940500286552 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:loceco:v:20:y:2005:i:4:p:344-359

DOI: 10.1080/02690940500286552

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Local Economy from London South Bank University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().