What constitutes under class?

[Invalidusername88]

Just reading about working class on another thread. It got me thinking about the term under class? What does this mean?

Also what class would you identify yourself as if you had to?

You can't be working class if you don't work.

Anybody can be out of work temporarily, but for me the denotes long term and possibly transgenerational worklessness. Of course at the other end of the scale the aristocracy don't work.

I meet people like this through work a fair bit because it cuts both ways if your health is bad it is difficult to work, but being longterm unemployed is also terrible for your health, that is both physical and mental health. Sadly some post industrialised communities are almost entirely made up of people like this ( I am thinking of the Welsh Valleys in particuar). The phrase has horrible connotations I agree.

Can we use another word to describe this group (long term unemployed, living on benefits, few opportunities to move into work) that isn’t negative or judgemental? This group exists, we need to name it to be able to talk about it in policy terms.

whenever I hear ‘underclass’ I think of people who have fallen through the cracks, or who are living at the bottom. As this thread shows, there are many many reasons why this might happen. Illness, divorce, disability etc.

And there are undoubtedly people are unwilling to get themselves educated, employed and off benefits. What I’m really interested in is, if you’ve been taught from childhood that it’s okay - even desirable - to live like this, how much of a choice do you actually have to go against that? To go against what your mum, your family and your siblings are doing? That’s really hard. In theory, I ‘worked hard’ to go to Uni etc, but in reality it was handed to me on a plate. My parents encouraged me, made sure I passed my exams, really valued education etc. I think that the lessons we learn in childhood can be very hard to overcome. So I try not to judge too harshly.

i don’t live in the UK but when I go back ‘home’ to my post industrial local town I see the ‘underclass’ everywhere.

I always thought it was a reference to homeless people

This:
"class shift" or perhaps better described " opportunity shift" rarely happens in one generation. This cuts both ways so it is only now we are seeing in the Welsh Valleys adults ( born in the '90s) who have never known anyone who works, not to mention the importance of maternal experience in pregnancy in shaping both physiological processes which impact on thought processes as well as physical health.

The term was coined in the mid 80s to refer to those who were then living in a disconnect from mainstream society through generational hardship, and who were characterised by a separation from societal norms and income solely through out of work benefits (usually no-one in the family working, over more than one generation)

There have of course been numerous revisions to benefits and the welfare state (under both Labour and Tory administrations) and to education since then.

It's quite heartening that some posters have never heard the term - that suggests progress in breaking the cycle of deprivation

(It doesn't help that I think of the 1980s as being about a decade ago - when it must be 40 years now since the term was coined!!)

By sociological definition I am underclass, hence the username. I grew up LMC, have post grad degrees but 2 dc are disabled (one severely) so that ruined work for me. On the surface I don't feel bad about myself, I have done loads of volunteering over the years, I'm especially passionate about giving disadvantaged children a leg up so I've done a lot of tutoring for free (and I was told on here this was not my responsibility and I'd disadvantage my own dc 😕). My dc look like they have a MC lifestyle - we live in a decent area, they go to grammar schools, ds got a car at 17 (bought by my DM).

I very much feel underclass when a LL decides to sell and I need to apply for a new rental. Estate agents always ask your profession at the viewing and then I tell them I'm a long term benefits user due to being a carer and you can just see the microshifts in their body language it makes you feel incredibly low and worthless. Housing is my biggest fear, the rents are sky high and the cheapest house I could find is £400 more pcm than the maximum housing benefit. I can only manage that due to 2 sets of DLA. The social/council housing waiting list is years long. I do fear that me and ds will end up in a workhouse type of situation the way things are going.

@Goldencup

exactly.

And in places like the Welsh valleys and my home town, the events that caused a generation to ‘fall through the cracks’ weren’t individual things like divorce, job loss, disability etc: these events took out whole communities and whole generations. Whole factories and industries closing over a space of years in the 70s and 80s: industries that had previously supported loads of working / lower-middle families and their modest lifestyles / ambitions were gone. And they have not come back. So by now in some areas there are 2-3 generations who have not worked, and who don’t know what to aspire to. University etc seems way beyond their reach, and the decent-paying jobs that didn’t require a degree are gone.

I think it's more cultural than defined by poverty. "Holding beliefs, attitudes, opinions, and desires that are inconsistent with those held by society at large" sums up the way I think about it.

@MeriCatfished this is why I don't inherently feel underclass. I too feel that the class system is more attitude based than money, and I don't believe that society is particularly mobile as a result. You might financially change your situation in a few years but it can take generations before attitudes/beliefs/values change.

@Invalidusername88
I am middle class.

Underclass refers to the people who have been chronically failed by the system and who are therefore disengaged and disaffected. The number of these people is rising-and will continue to rise until there is a significant change in the way things are managed. Society only functions when a critical mass of people are engaged and see a benefit in supporting it. That it is in the best interests of everyone to work to eliminate social deprivation, not increase it-as we currently seem bent on doing.

The underclass is how men think of woman, I worked in a pub in the past and heard enough to know how men talk about us.

Oxford English Dictionary

the lowest social stratum in a country or community, consisting of the poor and unemployed.
"the film is about the disillusioned underclass of society"

As a doctor I am by definition middle class, my upbringing more LMC. DM came from " respectable working class" but in an industrial town and our childhood holidays were in South Wales so I know a little bit of the background.

I wouldn't say you were.

When the term was first coined, it was definitely for those where the issues spanned at least two generations (it was a cycle of deprivation, not just the existence of the poor)

it's not a term I would use

underprivileged is a much more accurate term

I myself am an elite class cookie monster since earning my 'millionth cookie' badge

That's what I thought. Think I'd rather be classed as lower than under🤔

@Wowwellokthen you sound like me!

I haven't heard or used the term underclass but at a guess I would have thought it was crime related.

I'm poor but have clung onto a few thou and my possessions. Lucky in that my MSc is scholarship so I'm hoping I get out of this situation soon. But of course I feel bad about my situation given that it arose after I was attacked and withdrew from the world a little. If someone described me as 'underclass' I would feel very hurt.

@feralunderclass Sorry for your current difficulties. I would define your circumstance more as in terms of precariousness than being underclass. Not sure if you’ve heard of the ‘precariat’ but perhaps that would resonate with you?

It's not a word I'd use but I have always assumed it referred to people who live outside of the accepted societal norms.

People who who aren't 'economically viable' so don't benefit the rest of society. People who take out but don't ever put in. People with little choice or opportunity who are deemed 'beneath'.

People can find themselves in this position through no fault of their own but some people choose to live this way. As a society, we should adequately support the people who find themselves in this position and we do (prob not adequately though) through fhe benefits system.

It's the people who are 'dossers' I think the term is intended to apply to. People who'd rather sit around in a small pokey room with a bed sheet nailed across the dirty window than be a more productive member of society.

I've encountered both groups of people through work. The former still want the best for themselves and their families but are trapped by circumstance. The latter don't really give a shit and have opted out of society.

Doesn't translate well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch

What @NeverDropYourMooncup said. Any Sociology students know what the term means. A term originally coined by Charles Murray to describe those as below Working Class.
I don't think he intended it to be offensive just another class category in the hierarchy.

Course you can. I didn't work for 4 years when DS was little. I'm still working class.

Read my second line, also I think it is something to do with " workless households" which was David Cameron's euphemism.