Purpose of the inquiry

Demobilisation began under the official schemes in May 1945. By September 30th 1945, 332, 627 men and 98, 682 women had been demobilised. The rate of demobilisation was at that time increasing.

On leaving the forces each person received an issue of clothing coupons, as well as some items of clothing. There were already estimates of the expenditure of the coupons ordinarily issued to civilians, but it was not known whether the demobilisation coupons were being spent at the same rate, or on the same things. The Social Survey was asked to make an inquiry to provide the Board of Trade with this information. The field work of the inquiry was carried out from November 22nd to December 5th 1945.

Scope

It was necessary to find out:-

1. The rate at which the coupons were being spent.

2. What clothes the demobilised persons were buying for their own use with their coupons.

3. How many of the coupons were being spent on other people.

It was beyond the scope of the inquiry to examine the use of the coupons spent on other people but it should be pointed out that this may not be the same as the use of the ordinary ration, since demobilisation coupons would be spent in addition to the civilian coupons.

4. Other questions were asked to find out what clothes if any demobilized persons wanted but could not find in the shops. Informants were also asked their opinion of the number of coupons they received.

Method

Separate samples of 512 men and 245 women were interviewed. An account of the samples is given later.

Where the informant had not spent his coupons himself the person who had done so was interviewed if possible, though only the demobilised persons themselves were asked their opinion of the number of coupons they had received .146 (20%) of the interviews with men and 8 (3%) of those with women were made by proxy in this way.

A copy of the questionnaire and of the instructions given to interviewers, will be found at the end of this report.

Accuracy

Some informants had difficulty in remembering exactly the details of what they had bought, and the number of coupons that they had spent (questions 10, 13 and 14). In spite of this the interviewers felt that the answers were accurate enough to give a good general picture of the situation.

Some informants said that at the time of the interview they were saving coupons for winter clothing. The results may be influenced by this to a small extent.

Reception

A question was asked to find out how the inquiry was received. This was asked of all informants, including proxies. It relates to this kind of inquiry in general, but as informants had experience of this inquiry in their minds we answering it the results may be of interest here.

Of those answering “agree” or “very good” 67 men, 13% of the whole sample, and 36 women, 15% of the whole sample, qualified their answer by saying that they agreed if use was likely to be made of the results.

The interviewers agreed that the inquiry was well received, and only one refusal to be interviewed was reported.