The contemporary age lasts from 1950-present. With the globalization and post industrialism people change their lifestyle and the whole society changes. Quality of live rises because of the more free time and salaries. Secondary school is now free and that means that people takes a higher education than earlier. The contemporary age has also brought more tolerance to ethnical groups, homosexuals and different religions. In the 1960s begins the youth culture and the term teenager arrives. Young people starts to go against the mainstream and make small subcultures. One of the main reasons of the youth culture is the legendary band The Beatles. Men let their hair grow and women wear miniskirts. Lot of the Britain population is immigrants and after the 1960s there be-come more respect between the ethnical groups in society.
The economy in the contemporary age has a back down when the coalminers and car and steal plants closes and the number of unemployed rises. In 1984 the miner’s strikes because of Margaret Thatcher wants to close down the coalminers. The years where Thatcher is the leader is marked by the privatization of the public services such as water and electricity. But they still have public support for health and education and therefor they can maintain the Welfare State in a more liberal and reconstructed form but it still has an important role in Britain daily life.
In 1968 many years of peace in Northern Ireland breaks down. The two groups of Irish people be-come violent because the Protestants wants to be a part of the UK and the Catholics wants to be a part of Ireland. They establish two terror organizations IRA (Catholics) and UVF (Protestants). In 1985 the Britain and Irish government tries to find a solution that will be acceptable for both parts.
Margaret Thatcher has a huge role in this period of time. She is the only prime minister who has been elected three times. The conservative dominance lasts from the beginning of the 80s until 1997 where the Labour government with Tony Blair as a prime minister is elected.
The royal family has been a great value to the British people in hundreds of years. But after Elisa-beth II is a queen the popularity fall to the lowest point in all these years. In 1997 Princess Diana dies and it becomes a reminder of the major factor of the monarchy.
The flexibility and technology has developed which means that British literature is sold all over the world novels, poetry and plays. It is difficult to classify like you can do with the previous mention periods. More countries speak English which mean that the British, Australian and American litera-ture has even more places to publish their doings. In this period both black and women writers got their place in the literature.