“It is Sometimes Soul-Destroying”: Doctors’ Reflections on Unemployment and Health in Thatcher’s Britain

Abstract

Through an analysis of two sets of writing in the British Medical Journal from the 1980s, this article explores relationships between unemployment and health. “Unemployment in My Practice,” published in 1981, was a series of nine short essays by general practitioners from across the United Kingdom. This was followed by “Occupationless Health” in 1985, made up of fourteen essays, composed by the assistant editor of the journal, Dr. Richard Smith. Both series demonstrate how deeply frustrating it was for doctors to confront mass unemployment in light of the policy decisions of the Thatcher government. They present a call to medical practitioners to be aware of the health dimensions of unemployment and a growing sensitivity to the lives of working-class patients. Rich with perceptions about the relationships among work, gender, class, age, and health, these essays argue that unemployment was not just an economic problem, but one doctors needed to monitor. Doctors found their professional identities shaped in new ways by their broader economic and cultural contexts.