King's College London

Study shines light on how different attitudes and everyday life were in Britain in the 1930s and 40s compared to today:

• In 1937, just two in 10 people thought children should have to do homework after school – but now seven in 10 say they should.
• In 1946, 43% thought boys and girls should be taught separately, but now 76% are in favour of them being taught together.
• 37% of women said they’d rather be a man back in 1947 – compared with just 9% today.
• A quarter of men said they did no housework in 1947. Now just 4% admit to this.
• In 1946, 73% of the public valued job security and lower wages over high pay – but now 41% say the same.
• Since the 1930s and 40s, there have been big increases in the proportion who say they exercise to keep fit and say they can swim.

But there are some constants… two in five people say they struggle to get up in the morning today – virtually unchanged from 1947 – with women having the most difficulty.

A new study comparing public attitudes and behaviour in the 1930s and 40s to those today underscores how everyday life changed significantly over the 20th and 21st centuries, with big shifts in views on the importance of children doing homework, the desire for higher wages over job security, whether people keep fit or are able to swim, and women’s preferred gender.

The research, by the Policy Institute at King’s College London, is part of a series exploring societal and political changes in Britain. This latest study is based on data from historic polls and a new nationally representative survey of 1,033 UK adults carried out with Focaldata in December 2024.

Education across the nation: attitudes to homework and mixed-gender schools

Homework

Just two in 10 (21%) people thought children should have homework after school back in 1937, compared with seven in 10 (68%) today.

Analysis by the Education Endowment Foundation – which works to improve teaching and learning through better use of evidence – finds that, in both primary and schools, children who do homework appear to make several months of additional progress compared to children who don’t do homework. However, they emphasise the strength of the evidence is weak, in part because a large proportion of the studies into this question are not randomised trials.

Mixed-gender schools

In 1946, the public were relatively split on whether boys and girls should be taught separately (43%) or together (45%). Now people are hugely in favour of them being taught together, with 76% holding this view and just 12% saying they should be schooled separately.

And it’s the youngest age group surveyed who are today most keen on boys and girls being taught separately. One in five (19%) 18-to-34-year-olds think this is the best approach, compared with one in 11 people aged 35 to 54 (9%) and 55+ (9%).

How women became much happier to be women

In a sign of the progress made on women’s rights and equality in the UK, far fewer women today would prefer to switch gender than they once did.

In 1947, nearly four in ten (37%) women said they’d rather be a man – but today just one in 11 (9%) feel this way.

Men’s preference remains unchanged: around one in 20 say they’d rather be a woman today (5%) – virtually the same as in 1947 (4%).

Everyday life: chores, leisure, exercise… and getting up in the morning

How many men do housework?

In 1947, a quarter (24%) of men said they never help with housework. Today just 4% admit this.

Despite this shift, evidence suggests women still do far more housework than men today. The Office for National Statistics Time Use Study found women spent an average of 3 hours and 32 minutes per day doing unpaid work activities including housework, caring for others and volunteering in March 2024. This was 57 minutes more than the average among men.

Keeping fit and swimming

Two thirds of people (66%) now say they exercise to keep fit – up from around four in 10 (44%) in 1937.

And the share of the public who say they can swim has also risen hugely – from around half (54%) in 1946 to eight in 10 (79%) today.

Gardening

Just over half (55%) the public say they have a flower or vegetable garden today – roughly the same as in 1939 (58%).

Getting up in the morning

Two in five (41%) people say they find it difficult to get up in the morning today – virtually unchanged from 1947 (42%).

And it’s women (51%) rather than men (30%) who are today much more likely to say they struggle to get up in the morning than men, while the youngest group surveyed – 18 to 34s (61%) – are more likely than the oldest (23%) to report difficulty in getting up.

Work and where to live

Job security vs high pay

In 1946, the public were much more likely to say security with lower wages (73%) was more important in a job than earning as high wages as possible (23%).

However, today opinion is much more closely divided, with 41% preferring security with lower wages and 46% prioritising the highest possible wages.

Living in another country

Half (49%) the public today say they would settle in another country if given the choice – up slightly from around four in 10 (42%) in 1948.

Reform voters today stand out as most keen to go and live in another country, with 60% saying they’d like to go and settle abroad if they could – notably higher than the 46% of Labour voters and 44% of Conservative voters who say the same.

Professor Bobby Duffy, Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said:

“These long-term trends tell us so much about elements of life we take for granted today but are actually pretty new in our history. The much greater expectation on children to do homework makes perfect sense, as education levels and their importance to future success have increased hugely in the past 80 years. The education experience is entirely different for young people today than in the 1930s and early 1940s, when the school leaving age was still just 14 years old.

“We are also much more in favour of co-education, with boys and girls taught together – although it’s notable that younger adults are most likely to favour keeping the sexes separate, which may reflect other trends we’re seeing in terms of greater division between some Gen Z men and women.

“And it's a real insight into the lives of women back in the 1940s that nearly four in 10 said they’d rather be men, compared with just 9% today – although that is still twice the proportion of men who say they’d rather be women.

“We’re also now much more likely to be focused on pay than job security, which is an interesting pattern, given that unemployment was actually very low in the post-war years. This is likely to reflect the very real pressures felt on getting by today, even for those in work, given recent hikes in the cost of living.

“Many other small but important behaviours have also increased hugely – from keeping fit and the ability to swim, to men’s contribution to work in the home. But some have remained remarkably constant, not least that four in ten of us just struggle to get out of bed in the morning – a very human feeling that seems may always be with us.”

 

Survey details
Question wordings and response options have been kept consistent between surveys to preserve trends, even though in some cases they do not reflect current best practice in polling methods (for example, not allowing “don’t know” responses).

2024
Fieldwork was conducted via Focaldata’s in-house platform, with API integration to an online panel network. Data collection took place between 11 and 12 December 2024, with a total of 1,033 respondents from a nationally representative group of those aged 18+ in the UK completing the survey. Data was weighted by age, gender, region, ethnicity and education status.

Other years
Data from other years was taken from Gallup surveys included in The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls, Great Britain, 1937–1975, with a sample size of c1,000 GB adults.