The rural exodus was a long process. The breakdown of communal farming started before the 14th century. Subsequently enclosures advanced steadily, especially after 1740, until a century later open fields had virtually disappeared from the landscape. Many of the displaced landless agricultural labourers were attracted to the better employment opportunities and the higher wage levels of the growing industries. Meanwhile, a rapid rise in the birth rate had produced a growing population of young people in the countryside who faced little prospect of agricultural employment. These groups contributed to a high volume of internal migration toward the towns.
Industry, as well as the urban centres that inevitably grew up around it, concentrated near the coalfields, while the railway network, which grew rapidly after 1830, enhanced the commercial importance of many towns. The migration of people, especially young people, from the country to industrialized towns took place at an unprecedented rate in the early railway age, and such movements were relatively confined geographically. Migration from agricultural Ireland provided an exception, for, when the disastrous potato disease of 1845–49 led to widespread famine, large numbers moved to Great Britain to become urban workers in Lancashire, Clydeside (the Glasgow region), and London. The rural exodus continued, but on a greatly reduced scale, after 1901.
Soon after World War I, new interregional migration flows commenced when the formerly booming 19th-century industrial and mining districts lost much of their economic momentum. Declining or stagnating heavy industry in Clydeside, northeastern England, South Wales, and parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire swelled the ranks of the unemployed, and many migrated to the relatively more prosperous Midlands and southern England. This movement of people continued until it was arrested by the relatively full employment conditions that obtained soon after the outbreak of World War II.
In the 1950s opportunities for employment in the United Kingdom improved with government-sponsored diversification of industry, reducing the volume of migration to the south. The decline of certain northern industries—coal mining, shipbuilding, and cotton textiles in particular—had nevertheless reached a critical level by the late 1960s, and the emergence of new growth points in the West Midlands and southeastern England made the drift to the south a continuing feature of British economic life. During the 1960s and ’70s the areas of most rapid growth were East Anglia, the South West, and the East Midlands, partly because of limitations on growth in Greater London and the development of peripheral new towns in surrounding areas.
During the 1980s the government largely abandoned subsidies for industry and adopted a program of rationalization and privatization. The result was the collapse of coal mining and heavy industry in the north and the West Midlands of England and in the Lowlands of Scotland and a similar loss of heavy industry in Northern Ireland; this unleashed a wave of migration from these regions to the more prosperous south of England, especially East Anglia, the East Midlands, and the South West. As the economy stabilized during the 1990s, migration from Scotland, Northern Ireland, and northern England subsided. While the South East (including Greater London) was the chief destination of external immigrants into Britain, this region, along with the West Midlands, produced a growing internal migration to surrounding regions of England during the 1990s. This pattern reflected a larger trend of migration out of older urban centres throughout Britain to surrounding rural areas and small towns at the end of the 20th century. William Ravenhill The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Economy
The United Kingdom has a fiercely independent, developed, and international trading economy that was at the forefront of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution. The country emerged from World War II as a military victor but with a debilitated manufacturing sector. Postwar recovery was relatively slow, and it took nearly 40 years, with additional stimulation after 1973 from membership in the European Economic Community (ultimately succeeded by the European Union [EU]), for the British economy to improve its competitiveness significantly. Economic growth rates in the 1990s compared favourably with those of other top industrial countries. Manufacturing’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) has declined to about one-fifth of the total, with services providing the source of greatest growth. The United Kingdom’s chief trading ties have shifted from its former empire to other members of the EU, which account for more than half its trade in tangible goods. The United States is a major investment and trading partner, and Japan has become a significant investor in local production. American and Japanese companies often choose the United Kingdom as their European base. In addition, other fast-developing East Asian countries with export-oriented economies include the United Kingdom’s open market among their important outlets.
Ships serving North Sea oil platforms at dock in the port of Aberdeen, Scotland.Milt and Joan Mann/CameraMann International
During the 1980s the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher pursued the privatization, or denationalization, of publicly owned corporations that had been nationalized by previous governments. Privatization, accompanied by widespread labour unrest, resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the coal-mining and heavy industrial sectors. Although there was some improvement in the standard of living nationally, in general there was greater prosperity in the South East, including London, than in the heavily industrialized regions of the West Midlands, northern England, Clydeside, and Belfast, whose economies suffered during the 1980s. During the 1980s and ’90s, income disparity also increased. Unemployment and inflation rates were gradually reduced but remained high until the late 1990s. The country’s role as a major world financial centre remained a source of economic strength. Moreover, its exploitation of offshore natural gas since 1967 and oil since 1975 in the North Sea has reduced dependence on coal and imported oil and provided a further economic boost. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing Agriculture
The United Kingdom is unusual, even among western European countries, in the small proportion of its employed population (about 2 percent) engaged in agriculture. With commercial intensification of yields and a high level of mechanization, supported initially by national policy and subsequently by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU, the output of some agricultural products has exceeded demand. Employment in agriculture has declined gradually, and, with the introduction of policies to achieve reduction of surpluses, the trend is likely to continue. Efforts have been made to create alternative employment opportunities in rural areas, some of which are remote from towns. The land area used for agriculture (about three-quarters of the total) has also declined, and the arable share has fallen in favour of pasture.
Official agricultural policy conforms to the CAP and has aimed to improve productivity, to ensure stable markets, to provide producers a fair standard of living, and to guarantee consumers regular food supplies at reasonable prices. To achieve these aims, the CAP provides a system of minimum prices for domestic goods and levies on imports to support domestic prices. Exports are encouraged by subsidies that make up the difference between the world market price and the EU price. For a few products, particularly beef and sheep, there are additional payments made directly to producers. More recent policies have included milk quotas, land set-asides (to compensate farmers for taking land out of agricultural use), and reliance on the price mechanism as a regulator.