Welsh Journals

Table 2 Employment structure of small shops in the study area (% of all shops sampled) increasing use of family labour Husband or Husband None family wife + none + wife with Husband or Husband & business family none family wife alone wife labour labour Food Shops 3.3% 21.7% 8.3% 10.0% 5.0% Clothing & Footwear 6.7% 3.3% Chemists 3.3% 1.7% 1.7% Newsagents 1.7% 6.7% 1.7% 3.3% Household goods 3.3% 8.3% Services 6.7% 3.3% Despite this association with family labour small shops were still able to contribute to local employment opportunities, especially in the form of part-time jobs. The sixty small shops who replied to the circulated questionnaire between them employed a total of 134 people, including owners. Of this total, 38% were part-time employees and a great majority of these were women supplementing their family incomes, an important factor in an area traditionally renowned for its high levels of male unemployment. The employ- ment pattern of part-time employees appeared to have little or no relationship with retail functional types. Over 28% of all the small shops in the study area showed complete dependence on the family as a source of labour (table 2). In some instances, these figures represent widows or spinsters who often have no immediate family to rely on. Apart from this well known family involvement in small shop- keeping a number of other ownership characteristics appear to be of some significance. Specifically, reference can be made to the elderly nature of many small shop proprietors, for example in East Swansea well over 55% of the owners were over the age of 50 years. In contrast to this only 1.6% of the shops were owned by people of 30