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The lecture presents some of Professor Raphael’s ongoing research on the social history of the working classes in West Germany, France and Britain in times of de-industrialisation since the late 1970s. De-industrialisation was by no means a uniform outcome of a global evolutionary trend towards a new economy based essentially on service industries, but it was rather different forms of mixed economies which emerged along different national trajectories combining the manufacturing and distribution of goods, services and knowledge. The lecture will explore how and why these various changes affected the life cycles of industrial workers differently in West Germany and Britain between 1975 and 2000. It will examine the specific effects of, for example, higher levels of unemployment, greater job insecurity or the loss of traditional working skills on gender, age or ethnic differences.