03/08/13
http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/21176425?selectedversion=NBD306500The link above is to Ann Cartwright's article entitled "Family Size, contraceptive practice and fertility intentions in England and Wales 1967-75" in Family Planning Perspectives. 1979.
The source was incredibly useful as stressed the importance of social class in the uptake of the Pill. Published in 1979 it offers data from 1967-75 which is important as it shows both difference in social class use of the pill as well as the general increase in working class women which is important to note. From the data she collected I made a table showing the use of the Pill by social class.
Use of the Pill by social class
Social class
|
% Of group using the Pill
|
|||
1967-8
|
1973
|
1975
|
||
All
|
20
|
43
|
42
|
|
Professional
|
32
|
31
|
32
|
|
Intermediate
|
18
|
40
|
36
|
|
Skilled
|
Nonmanual
|
24
|
46
|
44
|
Manual
|
18
|
45
|
47
|
|
Semiskilled
|
17
|
41
|
42
|
|
Unskilled
|
13
|
43
|
41
|
|
Source: adapted from
Cartwright. 130. 1979.
As the table above shows social class impacted the rate of adoption of
oral contraceptives with women in the top socio-economic group being early adaptors,
quickly persuaded of its advantages in
terms of empowering choices about education, career, family size and family
wealth. University-educated
women were much more likely to be aware of and have access to the Pill as were
those living in middle-class and urban areas. From the early 1970s, however,
the socioeconomic profile of Pill-users altered, with less educated and poorer groups
accounting for an increasing proportion of Pill-users.
The fact that the Pill was an oral contraceptive meant that women would not have to touch their vaginas, which other forms of female contraception required. This was a common inhibition among british working class women Lara Marks expands on the point made by Cartwright by including an oral history of a British family planning Doctor, Denise Pullen. Pullen stated that a common feeling among British working class women was delight at the invention of the Pill as "they could pop their pill in their mouth, and forget they had anything below their waste."
