Necessary – but not necessarily fun!
08 July 2008
A survey in the UK has deemed some items as essential for modern day life (in the UK), while classing others as luxuries. Despite the obvious flaw, that we are all different and have different requirements, it is still an interesting report and it indicates what electronic goods form an essential part of modern day living.
The survey also shows what is not essential, which is probably just as interesting. A car, for example, is not essential while a bicycle is. My elderly and arthritic neighbours would pass out at the thought of riding a bike but rely completely on their car, although for safety reasons I do tend to try and stay away from the road if I know my neighbours are going to be driving on it. The semi-rural location I live in is not served well by public transport and most would agree that a car is essential. I would imagine if the same research had been undertaken in the USA then car ownership would have been included not just as essential but as a god-given right, while I noticed on a recent trip to Denmark that not only were bicycles everywhere, but also cars were as small and old as possible. Apparently the tax regime makes car ownership unnecessary unless it is a necessity, if you see what I mean.
Just to sum up the background of the research, it was conducted at Loughborough University by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an independent foundation who researches social issues in the UK. This research had a premise that everyone should be entitled to the fundamentals of life (food, shelter and clothing) but also with the ability to participate in modern society. If you want a look at the full report it is available on the web site and is called Minimum living standards. The report itemises everything in the modern home and life. A coffee table for example, should typically cost £69 and last for ten years (520 weeks), so the weekly cost of that table is £0.13. If everything is added up in this fashion (and ‘everything’ goes from a corkscrew, to heating bills, to a sofa etc) then it concludes that an average single person needs to earn £13,400 (US$26,500) a year before tax, to cover the basics of life (and that little bit extra to cover the ‘participation in society’)
So where does the electronics come in. Rather sadly I have looked through the whole list to see what contribution the electronics industry makes to the shopping list of the ‘basic’ consumer. There really is surprisingly little, even if you add in some electricals like iron, kettle, lawnmower etc. There are your kitchen appliances, telephone and mobile phone, smoke alarm, alarm clock (I’m assuming that its not clockwork) and then the short list of the things that lift us into the category of ‘living’ rather than just ‘existing’ These are CD player, digital camera, DVD player, PC (no printer mentioned), TV and Freeview box. For those outside the UK, Freeview is a box that provides digital terrestrial and allows a wider range of stations than analogue transmitters. The combined weekly cost of these is £4.46, or £231.92 (US$450) a year. For all that this is only part of the electronics industry, it is the ‘front line’ and I was slightly surprised that the number wasn’t a bit bigger. But then I have appalling luck with domestic appliances (as I made clear last year in my column ‘The smell of a burning motor. Again.’), and the thought of having a washing machine that lasts five years (as the report suggests) would be a considerable bonus. So maybe £231 is reasonable if your appliances don’t have a death wish.
If this is multiplied up assuming that all adults in the UK pay this amount then the figure is about $20bn, and remember that is just for the basics. Even without expanding the products considered essential, there are such things as TVs on the basic list. The TV suggested would cost £90 and last five years. I would have thought that most people, if they were to buy one TV for their house would be spending far more than that with the temptations of flat screens, HD and digital becoming ever more prevalent, and these trends would also speed the life cycle to shorter than the five years suggested. DVD players, incidentally, made the list largely because they were so cheap and so were good value for money.
It is fair to say that the objective of this report was not to be controversial, but was intended to provoke debate as to what are the material constituents of an acceptable standard of living. More importantly it was intended that this information could form part of the debate about what a minimum wage should be. Such calculations are too often based on percentages of what the rich earn rather than what it costs to run a life adequately.
What I find interesting is the regional variations that this throws up, particularly with respect to trends in electronics purchasing. The biggest chunk of electronics that any of us own is typically the car and that single factor would immediately throw these calculations into disarray. As I said earlier, the importance of the car would vary enormously depending on what you country you live in and the transport infrastructure of that country. But apart from the car I personally own all the electronic items on the list as I suspect virtually all of our readers do – or if they don’t then they do so out of choice. The acceptance of the mobile phone and the digital camera as a necessity in modern life I find a bit strange, even while at the same time recognising that I would be lost without either of them. Internet access is not deemed essential, incidentally, unless you are a teenager at school – and that I would disagree with, but then my job as editor of an email newsletter would be kind of pointless without it!
Perhaps for those of us in the electronics industry the most interesting survey would be the next one ‘Minimum living standards – only a bit more fun!’. This is where consumer electronics really kicks in. The upgraded PCs and TVs, satnav, MP3s and 4s players, digicams, and, most of all, the new breed of cell phones that do all of the above and more. These are the devices that drive the electronics industry and are those that are on the wish list for so many people who have aspirations beyond a ‘minimum living standard’.
On the other hand, are there may be those reading this thinking that the minimum standard list represents a level of luxury that some of us in certain countries take for granted? I would be interested to know.
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