Women’s Social Attitudes 1983 to 1998 
Executive Summary

This report presents quantitative research on women’s attitudes towards a wide range of social, economic, political and moral issues. It is based on data from the independent British Social Attitudes survey, which has been carried out annually since 1983. This collects information from a representative sample of around 3,600 adults in Great Britain. Not all the questions are repeated every year. The latest data available for analysis in this report is from the 1998 survey, but where the last time a question was asked was in 1994 that will be the latest data provided.

Chapter 2 Government and politics

In this chapter women’s attitudes towards the role of government, political participation, and political institutions are considered. It also looks at opinions about the European Union and the single European currency.

Government responsibilities

• Both women and men overwhelmingly favour state involvement in the provision of services related to health, education, and old age. There has been little change over time in levels of support for government taking responsibility in these areas.
• High levels of support are given to government economic interventions aimed at job creation and support for new forms of industrial development.
• Older women, and women with children under 16, are more likely than younger ones to support government intervention. The most pronounced differences in attitude relate to household income, with those on the lowest incomes being three times more likely than the highest income households to favour government action to reduce income differences or keep prices under control.
• A clear majority of women favour increased taxation and more spending on areas such as health and education. There has been little change in levels of support for health expenditure, which is the most popular, with education not far behind. Between 1985 and 1996, support for increased spending on education grew from 72 per cent to 82 per cent. Mothers were even more likely than those without children to favour spending in this area. Over nine in ten women with children supported extra money for education compared with eight in ten of those without children.

Political trust and participation

• Among both men and women, mistrust in politics and frustration with the system has fallen since the mid-1990s, but still remain higher than in the 1980s. People’s belief that they themselves can take part in the political world (‘personal efficacy’) has increased over the last few years.
• In 1996 nearly one in four women strongly agreed with the notion that "people like me have no say" over government, but this fell to one in six by 1998. Similarly, women have become more confident in their understanding of the political world. However, they remain much more likely than men to feel, or admit to feeling, that they find politics too complicated.

• Older women tend to be more sceptical than average about the political system, but do not show signs of feeling unable to participate in it. Women from manual socio-economic backgrounds, lower income groups, or with low qualification levels, are more likely than average to be cynical about the political system and to feel that they cannot participate.

• Support for different types of political action has changed little over the years. Age is a more important factor than sex in affecting attitudes here, with older groups being more conservative than younger ones.

The European Union

• Women and men do not differ in their support for Britain being a member of the EU, once women’s greater tendency to give a ‘don’t know’ response is taken into account.
• However, women are substantially less likely than men to support European Monetary Union. In 1998 just over a third of women agreed with the phasing in of a single currency either to replace or as well as the pound, compared to half of men.
• Older women, and those from low income households, manual backgrounds and with few qualifications, are more Eurosceptic than other women.
• In responses to a short quiz about the European Union, women demonstrated less knowledge about Europe than men.

Chapter 3 Welfare and Social security

This chapter explores women’s attitudes towards welfare in general and the social security system in particular.

• Support for welfare has fluctuated with attitudes relating closely to the economic climate of the time. Between 1987 and 1996 women were less likely than men to express pro-welfare views. The questions testing attitudes to welfare tend to be focussed on unemployment issues, which traditionally have affected more men than women and this may account for the difference.
• By 1998 however the opinions of women and men had converged so that there are few differences between the views of women and men towards welfare and social security spending.
• Younger women, those with dependent children, and those in low income households are more likely than average to be in favour of welfare provision. So too are women with degree level qualifications.

Social security benefits

• In 1998, women’s priorities for extra social security spending were those who care for the disabled, those who cannot work because of their disability, retired people and low-income working parents.
• When it comes to helping people in work, women distinguish between couples with and without children. Over half of women (56 per cent) in 1998 thought that the government should top-up the wages of couples on low incomes with children, compared to 23 per cent who favoured support for low-income couples without children. Women were less likely than men to think that the government should support the latter group.
• Clear majorities of both women and men think government should be responsible for ensuring that someone who becomes unemployed has enough to live on.

Benefit dependency and fraud

• Overall, women see benefit recipients as ‘worthy’ of the help they receive, though views about unemployed people are more mixed. Attitudes have tended to harden during times of low unemployment and soften during recession.
• Women with few or no qualifications are more likely than others to think that benefit recipients are taking advantage of the system.
• Women’s and men’s attitudes towards fraud and benefit dependency do not differ markedly.

Chapter 4 Money

This chapter considers a range of topics related to money – from women’s attitudes to their individual and household income to the minimum wage, savings and pensions. It confirms the findings of other surveys that women are almost twice as likely as men to be found in the bottom half of the earnings distribution, although the situation has improved over the last fifteen years. The chapter concludes with information on women’s attitudes to gambling and to charities.

• Over six in ten women (63 per cent) had no complaints about their earnings when asked to assess them by their own criteria, not in comparison with men’s in equivalent occupations. Overall, one in three women considered their wages "a bit low" or "very low" in 1998, which was little different from the position in 1984. Almost half of women in manual work were dissatisfied with their wage level.

• Half of women in 1998 thought that their earnings would rise in line with the cost of living. However, men were twice as likely as women to think their pay would outstrip inflation (24 per cent of men compared to 12 per cent of women).

• Women were more confident in 1998 than they were in 1984 that they can cope on their present income but still less likely to think this than men are.

• About four in ten women say that their household has never felt poor, while two in ten women say that their household feels poor often or almost all the time. Younger women, those in lower socio-economic groups and mothers are more likely to have felt poor than others.

Minimum wage

• The vast majority of women (82 per cent) support legislation for a minimum wage. Their views on this are the same as men’s but they are more concerned about the impact of the minimum wage on wage levels generally than men.

Saving

• New questions on attitudes to saving for the future were introduced into the 1998 survey. Women showed themselves to be generally pro-saving, with older women more so than younger women.

• Over six in ten women feel that those who do not save when they are young will find themselves in difficulty later.

Pensions

• Of those currently retired, men are twice as likely as women to be receiving a company pension.

• In 1998, among those still working, about four in ten women belonged to a company pension scheme compared to six in ten men, and half of these proportions of women and men were members of private pension schemes (19 per cent of women and 27 per cent of men).

• Women are more likely than men to expect that when they retire their main source of income will be the state pension, with four in ten believing this.

• About half of women and men see providing an adequate retirement pension as the government’s responsibility. However, over eight in ten women and men believe the government is abandoning this responsibility.

Gambling

• Women are less likely than men to take part in all forms of gambling other than Bingo.

• Over seven in ten women took part in the National Lottery in 1997. Younger women are more likely to take part than those aged 55 and over.

Charities and volunteering

• The overall view of charities was somewhat critical. Three-quarters of women believed there were too many of them, and a majority believed that private donations to charity detract from government responsibility to spend on people in need.

• Over half of women and men think that as a society we rely too much on volunteers, but 80% of women agree that doing voluntary work is good for the volunteers themselves.

Chapter 5 Paid work

This chapter focuses on women’s labour market participation, their attitudes towards the world of paid work, and levels of job satisfaction.

• The British Social Attitudes survey confirms the rise in the numbers of women going out to work, and other employment patterns found on labour force surveys. In 1998, 51 per cent of all women were in paid work compared with 45 per cent in 1990. It also showed that women were far more likely to work part-time than men were. In 1998, 43 per cent of female employees and 47 per cent of self-employed women worked part-time, compared with five and eight percent of men respectively.
• There has been a marked decline in the proportion of women mainly engaged in looking after the home, from 29 per cent in 1990 to 18 per cent in 1998. The more children a woman has the more likely she is to be to be looking after the home, so 37 per cent of those with 3 or more children under 12 were at home in 1998 (compared to 49 per cent in 1994). Only 1 per cent of men were looking after the home in 1998.

Job stereotyping

• There has been some erosion of job stereotyping, although certain jobs remain associated with particular sexes. For instance, 62 per cent of women in 1987 thought being a car mechanic was more suitable for men, but this dropped to 55 per cent in 1994 (the most recent year for which figures are available).
• Among those of working age, men held far more stereotypical views than women. For example in 1994 men were twice as likely to think that nursing was women’s work, and that policing was men’s work.

Reasons for working

• The main reason given for working by the most women and men is to earn money for basic essentials.
• Women with children under 16 are more likely than others to say the main reason they are working is "to earn money for extras". Those without children, or with higher qualifications, were the most likely to say they worked principally because they enjoyed it, or to further their career.

Working mothers

• In 1994 (when the questions were last asked) most employed mothers said they would not change their working hours even if they could change their childcare arrangements. However, a quarter of those working part-time said they would work more hours if they had different childcare available. In addition, four out of five mothers not in paid work said they would get a job if they had appropriate childcare.
• Working mothers are more likely than fathers or women without children to work for employers who provide part-time work and flexible working arrangements.

Job attributes

• The survey examines what aspects of a job are important to people, and whether their current job conforms to these aspirations. Job security and interesting work were seen by women in 1997, and previously in 1989, as the most important attributes of a job.
• There was a mismatch between what respondents considered important and what they had. For example, in 1997, 74 per cent of women thought opportunities for advancement were important but only 19 per cent said they had this. Seventy-two percent of women thought that having a high income was important but only 14 per cent said they had this.

The workplace

• Between 1989 and 1997 the proportion of women who said they always or often found their job stressful rose from a quarter to a third.
• Women are more likely than men to think their workplaces are well managed and are more likely to think management-employee relations are good.
• In 1998, similar proportions of women and men had trade unions or staff associations in their place of work. Two thirds of women with unions in their work place thought they did a good job.

Attitudes towards work

• A number of questions on attitudes towards work were asked in 1989 and again in 1997. Responses indicate that attitudes to work differ less between men and women than they do according to education, social class and income level.
• In 1997, just over a half of women said they would enjoy having a paid job even if they did not need the money.
• Most women and men in 1998 said they were either very or fairly satisfied with their job, but women were more likely to be satisfied than men, particularly women with young children.

Chapter 6 The Family

This chapter focuses on women’s attitudes towards family life, examining their views on marriage, divorce, and having children, gender roles within the home. It also looks at attitudes towards working mothers and towards single mothers. The data used is mainly from 1994, when the questions were last asked, but includes some figures from 1998.

Also in 1998, the British Social Attitudes survey included for the first time a number of questions on the role of grandparents in family life, and responses to these form the basis for the last section of the chapter.

Marriage, divorce and children

• Men and women had similar views about marriage, but there is considerable variation between the views of different groups of women. Married women and older women are more supportive of marriage, especially if a couple want children.
• Women’s views of marriage have become more negative in the period from 1989 to 1994. In 1989, three in ten women thought that married people were generally happier than unmarried people, but this fell to two in ten women by 1994. In the same period, the proportion of women who thought that "people who want children ought to get married" fell from 69% to 57%.
• Women’s attitudes towards the divorce laws did not change over the decade 1984 to 1994. Half supported the existing laws, around a third thought it should become harder to obtain a divorce, and only one in ten think it should be easier to divorce.
• When it comes to assessing the impact of divorce, women and men have quite different views. Nearly a half of women think women come out of marriage worse off than men, compared with only a quarter of men. Conversely, more than twice as many men as women thought men fare worse.
• The view that couples should stay together "for the sake of the children" is by no means widespread, with one in six women taking this stance. This view is more common among men, with a quarter of men supporting it.
• The majority of women – like men – think the ‘ideal’ number of children is two. Substantial majorities of both sexes have very positive views about parenthood, with older women and those who themselves have dependent children being the most favourable.

 Gender roles

• On the whole, neither women nor men held traditional views on gender roles. In 1998, support among women for the view that "a man’s job is to earn the money, a woman’s job to look after the home and family" had fallen to 16 per cent, from 26 per cent in 1989.
• Older women, and those from low income households or with low qualification levels, are more traditional in their views on gender roles.
• There have been fluctuations in attitudes to mothers taking paid work. The proportion of women supporting mothers working "if the children are well looked after" rose substantially from six in ten women in 1987 to over seven in ten in 1994, and this level of support was maintained in 1998.
• In 1994, 69 per cent of women agreed that "a working mother can establish just as warm a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work". Men were more traditional in their views, and less likely to agree with this statement.
• The age of the child involved influenced views on the acceptability of mothers working. A third of women felt that a "a pre-school age child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works", although a half of women still disagreed with this.

 Lone mothers

• A majority of women take the view that lone mothers with pre-school children should decide themselves whether to work or stay at home. But support for this stance has fallen over recent years, with one in five taking the view in 1998 that a mother in this situation has a ‘duty’ to stay at home and look after her child.
• Men are more prescriptive than women when it comes to whether or not a lone mother has a duty to work or stay at home, or should be able to choose what to do

Grandparents

• The majority of women (like men) see grandparents as having a role to play in family life. Only one in ten think that "grandparents have little to teach the grandchildren of today". On the other hand, three-quarters of women agreed that "with so many working mothers, families need grandparents to help more and more".
• Women’s and men’s general views on grandparents were very similar but with differences expressed over the details. For example, women were less likely than men to see grandparents as interfering with the upbringing of the children.
• The role of grandparents should not be overstated. For the most part it is largely concerned with helping their own children manage parenthood, rather than being more directly involved in the actual care and control of grandchildren.

Chapter 7 Health and Genetics

In this chapter, attitudes towards health issues are investigated, focusing on the respondent’s own lifestyle including smoking and drinking behaviour, and then moving on to look at views of the National Health Service. The most recent data on lifestyle is from the 1991 survey but information from 1998 is available on opinions of the NHS. The second section of the chapter examines public attitudes towards genetics, new questions on these issues having been introduced in 1998. It covers views on genetic testing, the acceptability of abortion on the basis of genetic tests, and feelings about genetic manipulation.

Health and Lifestyle

• Women and men do not report differences in lifestyle, except for drinking alcohol, which women do less often and at a lower level of consumption than men.
• Almost nine in ten women consider they are leading a healthy lifestyle but only two in ten women would rate their lifestyle as "very healthy". Older women are more likely than younger women to consider their lifestyle to be healthier compared with someone of their own age.
• A third of women smoke, with those who are younger and in lower socio-economic groups being more likely to smoke than others.
• Although no difference is found here in the proportions of women and men who currently smoke, women hold different intentions than men about their future smoking. Fifty-seven per cent of women think they will give up smoking compared with 43 per cent of men.
• About half of women say their level of physical activity is about average for someone their age. Men are more likely than women to say they are more physically active than others are.

The National Health Service

• Over four in ten women (43 per cent) are satisfied with the National Health Service, a figure not different to that for men. However, levels of satisfaction have fallen since 1983 when over half of women (56 per cent) were satisfied with the NHS.
• Women are more positive about GP services and NHS dentists than men are. Twenty-nine per cent of women are "very satisfied" with GPs compared with 25 per cent of men. Again levels of satisfaction with these services fell between 1983 to 1998.
• Older women hold more positive views than younger women about all aspects of the NHS. Better educated women, those in non-manual jobs and those with higher incomes express more dissatisfaction with NHS services than their counterparts.
• Women and men held slightly different views about hospital inpatient services. Although women felt more strongly than men that doctors would take seriously their views on their treatment, men were more likely to think their complaints would be taken seriously, with 76 per cent of men holding this view compared with 71 per cent of women.
• Both women and men strongly oppose the introduction of a two-tier NHS – in which free health services would be confined to those on low incomes. Almost three-quarters of women are opposed to this. Opposition to this idea has increased since 1983 when 61 per cent of women were against it.

Genetic research

• Questions on genetic research were introduced into the BSA in 1998.
• The majority of women and men are against the results of genetic tests being used by employers and insurance companies in making decisions about jobs or life insurance policies respectively. In fact, women are stronger in their opposition to this than men are.
• Both women and men strongly support prenatal testing but women are less likely to support it unless there is a serious reason for carrying it out. Only one in twenty women oppose genetic tests completely.
• Half of women believe it would be right to carry out an abortion if a genetic test revealed the foetus to have a serious mental disability. Forty-two per cent also support abortions if there is a serious physical disability in the foetus but are less likely to support abortion where for example there is a prospect of the child dying prematurely, or never growing to adult height.
• Women are less supportive than men of altering genes for a variety of reasons ranging from reducing the chance of breast cancer to changing a person’s sexuality.

Chapter 8 Education and science

This chapter covers attitudes to a range of education issues, from government spending priorities, types and quality of schools, testing and publication of results, and funding of higher education. Public understanding of and attitudes towards science are also evaluated from the results of a set of questions asked in 1996.

Improving education

• A quarter of women would prioritise extra spending on primary school children which is an increase from all previous years when fewer than one in five selected this as a priority. Around a fifth of women would choose extra spending for less able children with special needs, secondary school and pre-school children. Men are more concerned with spending money on secondary school children’s education than women are.
• Women are more likely than men to select smaller class sizes in primary schools as a way of improving the education received there, while men are more likely to want more emphasis on the development of a child’s skills and interests.
• Smaller class sizes and better quality teachers are each selected by a fifth of women as being the most useful way of improving secondary education.

Schools

• Women are divided over whether children should go through a comprehensive or a selective education system – 49 per cent support each alternative. Older women, those in non-manual jobs and those without children tend to favour a selective education system more than others.
• Almost eight in ten women in 1995 think that private schools should be allowed. However, between 1983 and 1995, the proportion of women who want to see a reduction in the number of private schools has increased from nine per cent to fifteen per cent.
• The majority of women think that boys and girls should go to mixed-sex schools. Nearly all of them say this is to enable boys and girls to learn to mix with each other.
• Women’s and men’s attitudes towards different types of school - selective versus comprehensive, mixed-sex versus single-sex, and private - did not differ.
• Two-thirds of women think that schools teach children basic skills such as reading and writing well. Over the period from 1987 to 1998, they have become more positive about the skills schools can provide. Women are more likely than men to say that school leavers are better qualified nowadays than they were ten years ago.
• Women are more likely than men to recommend that a 16 year-old should stay on at school to get academic qualifications, while men are more likely to encourage a young person to go out to get a job.
• Women see publication of school exam results as more useful than men do – seven in ten women thought it useful to know primary school results and eight in ten to know secondary school results.

Higher education

• Women are more likely than men to think that students should not have to bear the brunt of the costs of continuing into higher education. The proportion of women who think that local authorities should pay tuition fees increased from 70 per cent in 1993 to 77 per cent in 1995.
• Women’s positive attitude towards staying in education is also evident in the finding that they are more likely than men to say they want more opportunities for people to go to university.

Science

• Women have less interest in and knowledge of science than men do with the exception of medicine. Forty-seven per cent of women are interested in new medical discoveries compared with 40 per cent of men.
• Men have a more positive view of science generally than women do. Seventy-eight per cent of men think that science makes our lives healthier and easier, compared with 68 per cent of women.

Women’s views on environmental issues are explored in this chapter, using data from the inception of the BSA in 1993. It examines views on global and local environmental threats, the level of environmental knowledge, the prevalence of ‘green’ values, what action people are willing to take to protect the environment, and views on responsibility for environmental protection. The transport section of the chapter reviews ways to curb motorists’ use of private cars and to encourage use of public transport.

• Women’s concern about a number of environmental dangers has increased over the 1990s, with the pollution of Britain’s lakes, rivers and streams perceived to be the greatest threat. In particular, the proportion of women highly concerned about the use of pesticides and chemicals in farming increased from 39 per cent in 1993 to 63 per cent in 1998.
• There are no differences in women’s and men’s attitudes towards environmental threats but women are less concerned about things that might happen to the countryside than men are. Forty-five per cent of men are "very concerned" compared with 33 per cent of women.
• Women do not appear to be ‘greener’ than men. Although 30 per cent of women compared with 38 per cent of men agree that "it is just too difficult for someone like me to do much about the environment", women are no more likely than men to say they "do what is right for the environment even when it costs more money or takes more time." Men are more likely to be willing or to have taken action over potential threats to the environment

• Government is seen as having a key role in protecting the environment – eight in ten women think government should introduce laws to make businesses protect the environment.
• Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, the majority of women have wanted the greenbelt protected from building and erosion, though they are slightly less strong in their support for this than men are (77 per cent of men support greenbelt protection compared with 69 per cent of women).
• When considering the trade-offs between countryside protection and cheap prices and jobs, only one in five women would choose jobs over the countryside and a mere one in seventeen would put cheap prices ahead of countryside protection. Women’s support for putting countryside protection ahead of cheaper prices strengthened between 1986 and 1998.

Transport

• In 1998, seven in ten women consider the amount of traffic on Britain’s roads to be a serious problem compared to six in ten men. Not only is there a difference by sex, but also by age with older women being more likely to consider traffic a serious problem than those younger than 55. Concern about traffic levels fell among women from 80 per cent in 1993 to 71 per cent five years later.
• Men are more likely to consider traffic congestion as a serious problem for them personally than women are – 73 per cent of men complain about congestion in towns and cities compared with 61 per cent of women. However, women are more likely than men to support cutting down the number of cars on Britain’s roads.
• A clear majority of women (and men) – over nine in ten – think that public transport should be improved. When assessing the local bus service, 59 per cent of women thought that buses were too expensive and 42 per cent that they did not run frequently enough.
• Women and men are more likely to support ‘carrot’ rather than ‘stick’ measures for curbing car use. So, 36 per cent of women think cutting public transport fares in half would encourage them to use their car a lot less compared with 22 per cent who support motorway tolls.
• Four in ten women agreed that they could easily walk instead of using the car for short journeys, a higher proportion than for men (30 per cent). However, men were more likely than women to say that they could use the bus instead of the car.

Chapter 10 Young women

• This chapter reports on findings from the Young People’s Social Attitudes surveys of 12-19 year olds which were undertaken alongside the 1994 and 1998 British Social Attitudes survey. Not only is information about the young person available but also about one adult living in the household. Areas which are focused on are attitudes towards work, gender roles, school life, sexual relations and moral judgements.

Gender roles

• Young women are more likely than young men to have abandoned traditional stereotypes surrounding work and family roles. Over four in five women aged 12-19 disagreed that "a man’s job is to earn money; a woman’s job is to look after the home".
• Younger women are generally supportive of working mothers. Three-quarters agree that "a working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her child as a mother who does not work".
• Traditionalism is more common among 12-15 year olds than among older teenage girls.

Work

• Many young women see women as being disadvantaged in the workplace when it comes to pay and promotion. Over four in ten young women think pay for women is worse than for men. This view is most common among 16-19 year olds, among those from non-manual backgrounds or who expect to stay on in education the longest.
• Young women are more likely than young men to think that promotion chances are worse for women. Half of women aged 12-19 think promotion chances for women are worse than for men compared with only a third of young men.

School life

• Majorities among both young women and men think that girls work harder than boys at school and care more about doing well. And substantial minorities think that girls actually do better at school as well (the remainder thinking that there is no real difference between girls and boys in this respect).
• A quarter of young women report "a lot" of bullying at their school/college and 60 per cent reported "a little" bullying. Bullying is reported by more young women than men. Similar proportions (over half) are aware of there being drugs in their school.
• When asked how pupils who are found with drugs should be punished, the majority feel they should be expelled. This view is most common among younger teenagers. Those whose parents have few qualifications themselves tend to favour stricter penalties than those whose parents have higher qualifications.

• Very few young women (4 per cent) believe premarital sex to be "always wrong". But attitudes towards underage sex are not as permissive. A third of women aged 12-19 consider sex between two people aged under 16 to be "always wrong".
• The attitudes of young men towards sex are very similar to those of young women, with one exception - a larger proportion of young men consider underage sex not to be wrong at all.
• Young women and adult women hold similar views on premarital sex. Fifteen per cent of adult women on the British Social Attitudes survey think premarital sex is wrong as do ten per cent of those aged 12-19.
• The majority of young women think that it is all right for a couple to live together and not marry. Over three-quarters believe it is a good idea for a couple to live together first if they intend to marry. There was no difference in these attitudes between young women and men, or by age.
• Only one in ten young women thought that parents should stay together "for the sake of the children". This view was held by a notably higher proportion of young men – a quarter.

Judgements of right and wrong

• When asked to judge a particular scenario as right or wrong, young women are more likely than young men to take a critical view. For instance, they are more likely to feel that keeping money given by mistake in a shop is wrong, and to say they would take an honest stance in such a situation. Sixty five per cent of young women think keeping extra change in a big store is wrong or seriously wrong compared with 52 per cent of young men, and 37 per cent of women think they might do it compared with 57 per cent of men.
• Younger girls (aged 12-15) are more critical than older teenagers, and are the least likely to say that they would keep money given to them in error.