Repairing Consumer Objects

The history of repair of consumer objects in the post-war period is usually told as a story of decline. However, the “Histories of Maintenance and Repair in Luxembourg” project has revealed that official statistics on the development of small repair shops show a general stagnation and reorganisation of the Luxembourg repair sector, from mending shoes and clothes to fixing electrical devices and cars, but no general decline of the field. This is also confirmed by a close investigation of family budgets. Contrary to what the story of the triumph of the throwaway society suggests, repair did not disappear. Luxembourg households spent more money on repair at the end of the 1980s than in the 1950s. The paper will compare the Luxembourg case with other (West-)European countries using data from the European Coal and Steel Community. The paper will compare family budgets and repair expenditure in European countries, and investigate how much money was spent on the repair of which consumer objects?