Working class wannabes in the News

[Oileo]

It’s been reported in a few papers that ‘47 per cent of those in middle-class professional and managerial occupations identify as working class’ and 24 per cent of people doing middle-class jobs whose parents also did middle class jobs identified as working class too. The gist is that it’s now cool to pretend you rose to your position/ wealth on merit- rather than pretend to be posh.

It got me wondering (again!) about the class system. When do you change class?Can you easily in a generation? I had a middle-class job, yet I don’t know how I’d reply in that survey. I still personally feel a gulf between those who grew up wealth and a middle class background. Even in my 40s I have a bigger mortgage (no inheritance), my interests often don’t match (can’t play an instrument, I don’t know many ballets or plays in conversation for example, no ‘hobbies’ or skills outside education). I feel sometimes it’s obvious networking at work or in my dress (I wear hoop earrings, a number of colleagues over the years have made snide comments as a small example, but it’s more than that in presentation of yourself).

Part the reason for my fascination with class is that I don’t really fit as an immigrant. My parents were a cleaner and a security guard, but I/ they had access to a good education and the Soviet Union was a system that simply can’t be applied here. I have certainly earned here on merit money wise, but have also had better educational opportunities that many British working class. So I don’t really fit.

So
Yabu- your job defines your class
Yanbu-class is far more complex, and somebody may identify as working class if those are their roots.

I'd say income rather than job defines your class. I work in "middle class" roles but have never earned the national average salary, usually significantly less. Even when I was in a managerial role. So I feel "working class" even though I'm probably not, because everything is such a fucking struggle to make ends meet.

I agree that someone on £40k claiming they are working class is deluded of course.

I agree with the first reply.

@contrmary but then a sole income family with multiple children in London on 40k would be struggling to make ends meet, if renting they’d be slowly going under. Whereas elsewhere £35k may see you login a more typically middle class life? So even income is arguably complex?

Sdrastveytye. Fellow child of Soviet immigrants here. We don't really fit. But I find the British class system fascinating.

Just the London example: 2.5k take home, a small flat at 1.5k, council tax and bills £300+. Travel card to word £200. £500 for feeding everyone, clothing and everything else would be really tight

A 40k salary doesn't make you middle class! I used to work for a local authority where many were on similar or higher wages in non managerial roles & were absolutely working class with some living in social housing. Yes it was a London Borough but the pay uplift wasn't that significant vs the rest of the country.

Zdravstveytye- it is!!

Class has nothing to do with income, wealth or job. There are plenty of UMCs who don’t have much money, and plenty of WC people who have loadsamoney (nouveau riche).

It takes at least a generation, probably more like two or three to change class, and that works for upward social mobility as well as downwards social mobility.

it’s now cool to pretend you rose to your position/ wealth on merit- rather than pretend to be posh.

It's been like this for at least 50 years: since the 60s really.

I grew up in a very affluent area and almost everyone affected a faux working class accent.

It's a very difficult issue in this country because money and class are to some extent decoupled because of the emphasis on behaviour, language and culture as class markers.

It always used to be said that you could tell someone's class within seconds of them opening their mouth. That's less true nowaways but still to an extent. Unlike in the US, class here is an amalgam of factors including where you went to school, the way you talk, what leisure activities you favour, where you shop etc. You can be very wealthy but identified as "lower class" or not have a penny to your name and pass as very middle class. This is determined in the early part of your life by upbringing.

That said, class is more fluid than some people like to admit and a lot of bullshit is talked about this. I have a friend who is a successful lawyer earning well over £70k a year with her own home etc who still claims to be "working class" because her dad was a manual labourer. I don't think that washes any more when you're in your 40s. You can claim to have "working class roots" but you can't claim that the arbitrary class markers you were given as a child will stay with you forever.

You won't get a consistent answer OP.

You'll get the people who say 'if you need to work, as opposed to having a trust fund etc, you're working class'.

You'll get the people who say that if you have a degree, work in a profession, prefer Center Parcs to Butlins, Puerto Pollensa to Magaluf, read the Guardian not the Sun, listen to Radio 4 not watch reality TV then you're middle class.

You'll also get people who call themselves middle class and have a lot to say about how they see themselves as different to working class, usually by conflating 'working class' with deprived, rough, low status, poorly educated, ill mannered and uncultured.

There's just so much overlap these days that most people can't be neatly defined into one particular class.

You may enjoy Jason Mansford's Muddle Class.

I think if you started off working class but have 'moved up' in your life, then you should identify as the new class you are in

I have a friend who is a successful lawyer earning well over £70k a year with her own home etc who still claims to be "working class" because her dad was a manual labourer. I don't think that washes any more when you're in your 40s

So she had a working class upbringing. You're basically saying that working class people can't be successful, which is bollocks, frankly.

Immigrants often escape the class system here. It’s hard to pigeonhole them. Class markers are more cultural than income related. Footballers don’t get to be upper class for example.

Immigrants also escape the sexism in the education system. Meaning a lot of women in STEM weren’t educated here or their parents weren’t and instilled the value and their confidence in their technical abilities. Working class brits don’t easily escape generations of being in unskilled roles. And if they do, it’s harder to progress if you are easily identifiable as not middle class - accent, where you grew up, where you holiday etc.

You don’t get to move class. Your kids do. Working class lawyer isn’t an issue. What about a plumber earning over £100k? Are they allowed to remain working class?

@BarbaraofSeville

I have a friend who is a successful lawyer earning well over £70k a year with her own home etc who still claims to be "working class" because her dad was a manual labourer. I don't think that washes any more when you're in your 40s

So she had a working class upbringing. You're basically saying that working class people can't be successful, which is bollocks, frankly.

I'm absolutely not saying that: I'm saying the exact opposite. She is living proof that working class people can be successful. But she says she's still "working class" despite being in the top 25% of the country (maybe the top 10%) earnings wise for a woman.

I'm saying you can't have it both ways: if you're earning at the top end of the income scale and own you're own property in London you can't claim to still be working class.

She has working class roots but is no longer working class. It's an important distinction.

It's a properly interesting question to me.

I married up - husband solidly middle class, his dad owned his own successful business etc etc. There's a lot of money coming into the house (not a stealth boast, but for context). I'm freelance from home because DS has SN.

But I was brought up in a council house, both sets of grandfathers were miners, I was the first to go onto higher education (and while I attended a redbrick uni, it wasn't to get a degree), there were long periods of parental unemployment growing up/hiding from the coal man when he came looking for payment.

In my heart I am solidly wc but I definitely lead a mc life. And because of that, the idea that my DS could be considered wc is hilarious.

Immigrants also escape the sexism in the education system. Meaning a lot of women in STEM weren’t educated here or their parents weren’t and instilled the value and their confidence in their technical abilities. Working class brits don’t easily escape generations of being in unskilled roles

I think I'll now identify as an ex-Soviet immigrant.

@thepeopleversuswork you don’t understand what you are talking about. Class does not equal income or job. It’s all about upbringing. Wayne Rooney is not middle or upper class. His kids won’t be working class but he always will be.

Not really sure to be honest, but most middle class people aren't really that cultured.

If you were keen on expanding your cultural horizons, you could actually get a lot of what you need on YouTube, so I don't see money as being a barrier there.

On MN your job defines your class.
I've read it countless times "I grew up WC now I'm MC.
In the real world it is much more complex.
I pity those that grew up WC who now consider themselves MC.
Firstly real MC people will never think they are MC their WC people think they're a snob.

[quote ShastaBeast]@thepeopleversuswork you don’t understand what you are talking about. Class does not equal income or job. It’s all about upbringing. Wayne Rooney is not middle or upper class. His kids won’t be working class but he always will be.[/quote]
I do absolutely understand this as you'll see if you read my first post: its a complex mixture of class markers and not purely down to money.

But I don't accept that your class at birth is set in stone for life. You can move either up or down the class system throughout your lifetime.

Wayne Rooney may be "working class" (not sure I'd agree but I understand your point). He doesn't strike me as someone to whom the markers of class have much importance. But there are plenty of examples of people from deprived backgrounds who have become upper class through their lifetime, or vice versa.

What about the Duchess of Cambridge? She was born middle class but no-one can really argue that the wife of the heir to the throne has remained middle class just because of the circumstances of her birth.

Or Victoria Beckham? I very much expect she would challenge the assertion that she's not upper class now.

@BarbaraofSeville anecdata? As a STEM woman you’ll understand this and it’s embarrassing you don’t. Working class people in this country struggle. A minority will do well. You are not necessarily representative. Nor am I (university educated and in professional career, maths based but not STEM, once covid is over, own a home in London).

DH’s org chart for STEM job. All women were non English names = not generations of English. I also worked where the only female engineers were foreign. You cannot deny there is an issue with a lack of women in STEM in the UK.

I don’t recall the women having ex soviet names, nor those I worked with being ex soviet.

DH and I had a conversation about class when we first met. He was surprised I described myself as working class until he got to know my family background more.

My Dad did a wc manual job and mum worked in an office in a managerial role but only after years of shifts in a pub and bingo hall while she juggled raising kids and trying to earn enough money to keep us going. Dad did casual weekend work too to subsidise his low income.

Parents struggled a lot financially when I was growing up but by the time I met DH in my early 20s they were much better off and lived in a nice big new house ( still in a very wc area ) thanks to my mum's new career.

He described himself as middle class as the son of a vicar. He grew up very cash poor but lived in a massive old vicarage. His dad is now retired and they live a very frugal life in a tiny house which was all they could afford to buy on a vicars pension when he retired and a church house was no longer available to them.

I still describe myself as being from a WC background but we are a typical middle class family if you look at income and the house/area we live in. The BBC class calculator put us in the elite category.

My kids would never be able to claim to be working class.

@thepeopleversuswork seriously. You don’t understand. This is basic and well established.

@MaskingForIt

Class has nothing to do with income, wealth or job. There are plenty of UMCs who don’t have much money, and plenty of WC people who have loadsamoney (nouveau riche).

It takes at least a generation, probably more like two or three to change class, and that works for upward social mobility as well as downwards social mobility.

I so agree with this.

I have a "middle-class" job, own my own home in a good area etc, but I grew up on the roughest council estate in Croydon. Once I was in my teens, my father's career took off and he ended up in a well-paid senior management role, but when I was young they were perpetually skint. We lived in a cold, damp flat with no bathroom until I was 9. We couldn't afford a phone, and he couldn't afford to learn to drive or run a car.

Those early experiences were formative. They were compounded when I got a scholarship to a private school and not only was the only one without a phone at home, but half my year had ponies.

These are some of the things that made me who I am. And who I am is thoroughly working class and horrified by the gross inequality and poverty in our society.