The problems today compared to the 1980s

[Brendan Burgess]

I have heard people say "but the problems in the 1980s were worse and we recovered from them". I think it would be useful to compile a comparison of the figures for both periods.

Dan O'Brien has an excellent article in today's Irish Times on the topic

Managing Debt Burden is no return to the 1980s.

Anyone volunteer to compile a factual comparison?

[cashier]

I am sure there was another thread relating to this subject some time back.

I think there was far more poverty during the 1980's, interest rates were huge and emigration far higher than it is today. There was little or no personal debt.

[Brendan Burgess]

Thanks Cashier - hadn't occurred to me to look.

Is the current session worse than the 1980s?

As this forum is about Key Data and not about debate, what I am looking for here is the comparative data.

[dontaskme]

One big difference is participation of women in the workplace. A lot of economic growth in the 1990s was fuelled by women entering and returning to the workplace. Businessweek had an interesting article on how male participation in the workplace in the US is the lowest since the 1930s. The participation rate goes down in a recession and usually does not bounce back afterward to the same level.

The demographics were different as well. The birth rate declined from 1979 to the 90s and has been more or less constant for a while now so there are proportionately fewer younger people who are the marginal work force i.e. if the economy is booming, they get the new jobs, if it's in recession they're on the dole queue or the boat. So emigration is probably affecting fewer families.

[Brendan Burgess]

Marc Westlake has written a long article on this important topic.

In this brief review of the 20th Century, we consider current events in the context of Global history and conclude that our perception of how bad things are today is probably being excessively influenced by the media to the extent that on average many of us view current conditions to be far worse than they really and certainly are not unprecedented in modern human history.

[DrMoriarty]

For context/comparison, or for those who like their "chart porn", some interesting stats I saw on BBC's Newsnight last night: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-16090055