This slim orange document carries the substantial sub-title: Report of a Survey Carried Out by the Bletchley Dept. of Employment and Milton Keynes Development Corporation.
Our ref D-MKDC/18/224
The survey was conducted at a point in Milton Keynes’s history when the Development Corporation was trying to attract industries to set up factories in the new town. Many of these companies required large numbers of female employees. The Bletchley Department of Employment had also identified a trend of vacancies for women going unfilled. This survey was a joint effort by the two bodies to identify what the barriers were to women working, across the north Buckinghamshire towns of Bletchley, Wolverton, Newport Pagnell, and of course, Milton Keynes.
Posted to households, women answered questions that yielded information on topics such as:
Reasons for not working
Time Spent Commuting
Type of work required: (you could choose from the following options – Clerical, Canteen, Factory, Shop, Cleaning, Laboratory Assistant, Other)
The survey results are a little unclear, but it appears around 4800 questionnaires were completed.
The main findings of the survey were as follows:
-Lack of childcare provision was the main barrier to women working
-More flexible working hours would enable women with children to work
-Better bus services are required
-Women were currently working in low-paid and low-skilled positions; employers should offer better training opportunities
That the needs of the female workface were considered as a vital factor in the growth of Milton Keynes suggests a wider trend of increasing numbers of women with jobs in the UK.
Milton Keynes in Fifty Historic Records 