Yaojun Li

A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC's Great British Class Survey experiment

The social scientific analysis of social class is attracting renewed interest given the accentuation of economic and social inequalities throughout the world. The most widely validated measure of social class, the Nuffield class schema, developed in the 1970s, was codified in the UK’s National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) and places people in one of seven main classes according to their occupation and employment status. This principally distinguishes between people working in routine or semi-routine occupations employed on a ‘labour contract’ on the one hand, and those working in professional or managerial occupations employed on a ‘service contract’ on the other. However, this occupationally based class schema does not effectively capture the role of social and cultural processes in generating class divisions. We analyse the largest survey of social class ever conducted in the UK, the BBC’s 2011 Great British Class Survey, with 161,400 web respondents, as well as a nationally representative sample survey, which includes unusually detailed questions asked on social, cultural and economic capital. Using latent class analysis on these variables, we derive seven classes. We demonstrate the existence of an ‘elite’, whose wealth separates them from an established middle class, as well as a class of technical experts and a class of ‘new affluent’ workers. We also show that at the lower levels of the class structure, alongside an ageing traditional working class, there is a ‘precariat’ characterised by very low levels of capital, and a group of emergent service workers. We think that this new seven class model recognises both social polarisation in British society and class fragmentation in its middle layers, and will attract enormous interest from a wide social scientific community in offering an up-to-date multi-dimensional model of social class.

Timespans and plans among young adults

This article uses data from a survey of young adults in Kirkcaldy, Fife, together with associated qualitative interviews, to throw empirical light on their sense of control over their lives and their perceived willingness and ability to plan their lives. Its principal conclusion, contrary to the suggestions of much previous literature, is that a majority of young adults of both genders do, by their early twenties at least, feel in control of their lives and able to exercise forethought over quite long periods of time with respect to many aspects of their futures. Far from seeing the future as simply ‘an extended present’, they see active opportunities for choice and for formulating their own lives in the years ahead. Only a minority, predominantly those who feel themselves in particularly insecure circumstances, live primarily for the present or think ahead only or principally for the very short term.

Sooner rather than later? Younger and middle-aged adults preparing for retirement

During the 1990s, the British population has been urged by government and financial institutions to make more personal preparation for retirement and to begin doing so while they are still relatively young. This paper, set within a wider analysis of peoples long-term planning behaviour, investigates the extent to which a sample of the general population of Kirkcaldy in Scotland, mostly aged between 30 and 49, has given thought to the question of retirement, feels they have made financial preparation for it, and also how comfortable they expect retirement to be. While it seems likely that early planning for retirement is more common today than 20 years ago, there remain substantial sections of the population, including – but going well beyond – many in lower income groups, who appear not to be preparing, for varying combinations of reasons (including family responsibilities, personal history, cultural and general orientation to life). The study concludes that planning for retirement must be seen as part of planning as a whole, and that the propensity to plan is the outcome of a complex web of material, social, cultural and psychological factors. This suggests that even very high profile urging from politicians and financial institutions is unlikely to deliver adequate pensions for significant sections of the UK population.

Minority ethnic men in British labour market (1972‐2005)

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate ethnic disadvantages in the UK labour market in the last three decades. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on data from the most authoritative government surveys, the gross and net differences in employment status and class position between minority ethnic and White British men covering 34 years (1972‐2005) are analysed.Findings – White British and White Other men were generally advantaged in employment and in access to professional and managerial (salariat) jobs. White Irish men were making steady progress, and have now caught up with the White British. Black men were much more likely to be unemployed in recession years but progress is discernible with Black Caribbeans approaching, and Black Africans frequently outperforming, the White British in gaining access to the salariat. Indian and Chinese men were behind the White British in employment but little different in access to the salariat. Pakistani/Bangladeshi men were most disadvantaged in both respects.Ori...

Confidence Amid Uncertainty: Ambitions and Plans in a Sample of Young Adults

The limited and sometimes contradictory published literature, mostly relating to younger age groups and non-British societies, suggests that planning and a longer time perspective are inhibited by economic insecurity, by tight structuring of the life course, and a track record of failing to achieve ambitions. This paper uses survey data, backed by qualitative interviews, to investigate planning and forethought in a sample of young adults in the Scottish town of Kirkcaldy in the late 1990s. Responses are compared with those of older age groups and of people of the same age twelve years earlier. Economic insecurity and failure to achieve ambitions had been seen by our older respondents as particularly characteristic of the lives of young adults. However, in spite of considerable sense of insecurity, the young adults we studied do in general feel in control of their lives, and do have well articulated ambitions and plans to achieve them with respect especially to work and housing. Indeed, conditions of modern life almost force many to seek to plan to some degree in these areas. Forethought and an element of planning, albeit often quite provisional in its nature, seems actually to provide some sense of security in an uncertain world. Respondents also show considerable commitment to future childbearing and partnership, though past experience of entry to both has often been fairly haphazard and there is evidence of cultural resistance to overly rational planning in such areas. Failing to achieve ambitions in the past does not affect ambitions but does limit willingness to plan for the future, especially for the long-run. Poverty and job insecurity, and also the presence of children, inhibit planning, in some cases to extreme degrees.

Is Social Mobility Really Declining? Intergenerational Class Mobility in Britain in the 1990s and the 2000s

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on social mobility in contemporary Britain among economists and sociologists. Using the 1991 British Household Panel Survey and the 2005 General Household Survey, we focus on the mobility trajectories of male and female respondents aged 25-59. In terms of absolute mobility, we find somewhat unfavourable trends in upward mobility for men although long-term mobility from the working class into salariat positions is still in evidence. An increase in downward mobility is clearly evident. In relation to women, we find favourable trends in upward mobility and unchanging downward mobility over the fourteen-year time period. With regard to relative mobility, we find signs of greater fluidity in the overall pattern and declining advantages of the higher salariat origin for both men and women. We consider these findings in relation to the public debate on social mobility and the academic response and we note the different preoccupations of participants in the debate. We conclude by suggesting that the interdisciplinary debate between economists and sociologists has been fruitful although a recognition of similarities, and not simply differences in position, pushes knowledge and understanding forward.

A Divided Working Class? Planning and Career Perception in the Service and Working Classes

The contrast between the service class and the working class is central to much class analysis. This structural distinction, based on differences in the employment relationship, is analytically powerful, has validity, and is not in question here. The working class, however, is not homogeneous in all respects. This paper focuses on a sizeable group within the working class who perceive themselves as having (or having had) a career. As well as having this perception, they exhibit a forward-looking perspective, both in the world of employment and with regard to more general planning. They demonstrate degrees of planning, in work and non-work areas, strikingly comparable to service class respondents, and significantly greater than working class respondents without career perceptions. They believe that they can achieve their plans and indeed some have done so successfully. This exercise of forethought is materially aided by this groups possession of rather greater resources of various kinds than the rest of the working class. But this is by no means the whole story. The findings suggest strongly that a willingness to exercise or not to exercise forethought sharply distinguishes two groups within the working class, and may indicate a significant and hitherto unreported cleavage worthy of further investigation.

The changing relationship between origins, education and destinations in the 1990s and 2000s

This paper examines the changing relationship between origins, education and destinations in mobility processes. The meritocracy thesis suggests the relationships between origins and education and between origins and destination will weaken while the relationship between education and destinations will strengthen. Comparing data from the 1991 British Household Panel Survey and the 2005 General Household Survey, we test these associations for men and women. We find that the relationship between origins and education and origins and destinations has weakened for both sexes. While these findings are supportive of the meritocracy thesis, they are not, however, evidence of a secular trend towards merit-based selection. Contrary to the thesis, we also find the association between education and destinations has weakened for men and women. The relationship between education and destinations is more complicated than is often assumed and the role of meritocratic and non-meritocratic factors in occupational success needs to be better understood.

Social change, friendship and civic participation

This paper studies the changing distribution of social capital and its impact on class formation in England and Wales from a ‘class structural’ perspective. It compares data from the Social Mobility Inquiry (1972) and the British Household Panel Survey (1992 and 1998) to show a distinct change in the class profiling of membership in civic organisations, with traditionally working-class dominated associations losing their working-class character, and middle-class dominated associations becoming even more middle-class dominated. Similar changes are evident for class-differentiated patterns of friendship. Our study indicates the class polarization of social capital in England and Wales.

Dynamics of social capital trends and turnover in associational membership in England and Wales, 1972-98

Following the important recent work of Robert Putnam, there is considerable current debate about whether the volume of ‘social capital’ in western societies is in decline and if so what might be the implications for political democracy. Evaluations of the arguments are difficult both because the concept of social capital is a contested one and because measuring social capital is difficult. This paper focuses on membership of voluntary associations in England and Wales as a key measure of social capital and analyses trends in associational membership and their social determinants using the Oxford Mobility Study and British Household Panel Survey. We show that focusing on seven associations there is a broad pattern of stability in membership with the striking and remarkable exception of falling male membership of trade unions and working-men?s clubs. We see this as testimony to a class polarisation in membership in which working class men have been increasingly marginalised from associational memberships. Our conclusion argues that if the membership of voluntary associations is to be used as an index of social capital, there is an increasing social skewing of membership and an intensifying service class hegemony over social capital which poses major concerns for its potential to sustain democratic politics.