Editing Edwardian era (section)

===Public health===
{{Further|History of public health in the United Kingdom}}
By the late-1880s, the [[Industrial Revolution]] had created new technologies that changed the way people lived. The growth of industry shifts in manufacturing factories, special-purpose machinery and technological innovations, which led to increased productivity. [[Gender roles]] shifted as women made use of the new technology to upgrade their lifestyle and their career opportunities.

Mortality declined steadily in urban England and Wales 1870–1917. Robert Millward and Frances N. Bell looked statistically at those factors in the physical environment (especially population density and overcrowding) that raised death rates directly, as well as indirect factors such as price and income movements that affected expenditures on sewers, water supplies, food, and medical staff. The statistical data show that increases in the incomes of households and increases in town tax revenues helped cause the decline of mortality.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite journal |jstor = 41377834|title = Economic factors in the decline of mortality in late nineteenth century Britain|journal = European Review of Economic History|volume = 2|issue = 3|pages = 263–288|last1 = Millward|first1 = Robert|last2 = Bell|first2 = Frances N.|year = 1998|doi = 10.1017/S1361491698000124}}</ref>

The new money permitted higher spending on food, and also on a wide range of health-enhancing goods and services such as medical care. The major improvement in the physical environment was the quality of the housing stock, which rose faster than the population; its quality was increasingly regulated by central and local government.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> [[Infant mortality]] fell faster in England and Wales than in Scotland. Clive Lee argues that one factor was the continued overcrowding in Scotland's housing.<ref>Clive H. Lee, "Regional inequalities in infant mortality in Britain, 1861–1971: patterns and hypotheses." ''Population Studies'' 45.1 (1991): 55–65.</ref> During the First World War, infant mortality fell sharply across the country. J.&nbsp;M. Winter attributes this to the full employment and higher wages paid to war workers.<ref>J.&nbsp;M. Winter, "Aspects of the impact of the First World War on infant mortality in Britain." ''Journal of European Economic History'' 11.3 (1982): 713.</ref>