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.

Its not a British class system ideology, it's an English one from my experience. In Wales and Scotland no one I knew would go out of their way to describe themselves as a class, especially middle class. People who did the latter would get an eye roll and called a 'big I am'. So I guess they'd sooner identify as working class then be seen as some kind of social snob, regardless of their job, personal wealth or social status. It's just not the 'done thing' outside of England to declare your class, again that's just my experience.

Money and education defines your class.

As a fellow immigrant from the former Soviet Union I don't understand why the OP would feel the weight of the class divide when everyone had access to higher education in the Soviet Union and education alone would levitate you above "working class".

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 love successful people like this. She is probably more comfortable around WC people she gets to keep her proud identity & as an educated woman get rich.

Dbro is a millionaire he has a building company not academic is he allowed to stay WC rich but manuel job?

@Macncheeseballs

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

But it takes more than that to move up in class- at least 2 or 3 generations. Whatever your actions, you will still be in the same class you were born in, but your children’s children might not be

[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]
Your class is definitely not set in stone, and also it is pretty fluid. If I described my life in one way I sound working class (grew up on council estate, on benefits) but I went to grammar school and Oxbridge, and my mum got a degree and took up a professional job when I was a teenager. Have I moved from working to middle class? Has she? If I tried to describe myself as working class now I would be laughed out of the room.

Why do I only hear of class on Mumsnet which is also obsessed with it?

Money and education defines your class

No way. I will always be working class. I obtained my degree and post graduate qualification later in life and it doesn’t matter if I win the lottery I’ll always be working class. It’s a culture, the terms I use, the way I speak, the understanding between other people, traditions etc. I’m not explaining it well but when you know, you know.

It’s also specifically regional. All of the above are specific to the working class from my area.

All this angst about which box to pigeonhole someone into clearly demonstrates is that the generic Class system is no longer fit for purpose in the 21st Century.

Leave it behind in the annals of early/mid twentieth century history, where it rightfully belongs.

Hello from another ex-Soviet immigrant in STEM. We don't fit into the class system here, it is a futile task to even try.

When do you change class?

You can't. That's entirely the point.

Who gives a * about class. I have never asked myself the question of which class I belong to. I couldn't care less. There is little that defines me any less than class.

Im fairly positive that my parents were working class, i dont know what i am as it would depend on how its worked out

Dh’s parents i think would be working class as well, dh went to boarding school, has a middle class job earns a decent amount of money but doesn’t have a degree

I think we definitely appear middle class and if i had to say (for some completely obscure reason....no one has actually asked and I can’t see why they would) i would say we were middle class

Children would definitely be considered middle class

I do find it interesting...but it would be completely useless information

Victoria Beckham is not Upper Class. She never will be. Possibly UMC but probably not.

Watching the English is a good book on this topic
Watching the English: The International Bestseller Revised and Updated www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1444785206/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_hMucGbP51G21F?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Love that book chaz

@Macncheeseballs

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

What about if you start off as middle class but fail your exams, have a teenage pregnancy and work for minimum wage? Should they identify as the new class they are in?

Who gives an actual FUCK!!? This topic comes up all too often. Are people in the U.K. really that bloody obsessive about class. You are who you are, you earn what you earn!! Not a big fucking deal!! bore off!!

In my opinion, class is initially defined by the job your parents have/had. My father was a doctor and we were most definitely middle class. I had private schooling but did a pretty uninteresting, not highly-paid job which was the 'thing' to do for girls/women like me .Although that job might classify me as 'working class', I am not because of who my father was.

@BrumBoo

Its not a British class system ideology, it's an English one from my experience. In Wales and Scotland no one I knew would go out of their way to describe themselves as a class, especially middle class. People who did the latter would get an eye roll and called a 'big I am'. So I guess they'd sooner identify as working class then be seen as some kind of social snob, regardless of their job, personal wealth or social status. It's just not the 'done thing' outside of England to declare your class, again that's just my experience.

Oh there's a class structure in Scotland all right, it's just flatter (there are layers of middle-classness that we just don't get, like describing the Duchess of C as middle-class, which boggles my mind).

In Edinburgh specifically, class is inextricably linked to how you were educated. I used to think people were being super-friendly when they asked what school I went to, until a colleague put me straight. 25% of DCs at secondary in Edinburgh attend private school, so this is still ongoing.

There was a thread on a facebook group recently where the OP was moving to an area of Edinburgh and asked advice about the local catchment school, the first 10 responses were recommending private and not even answering the question...

I think these days, the 'traditional' class strata are too blurred to be able to define. I don't see the necessity to do so - why is it important?
Most people are dependent on work to survive, these days.

UC = the elite
MC= the middling types
LC= those deprived of many opportunities.

Your class depends on social and economic variables. This in turn depends on the family you are born into.

Social = things like education (eg Eton or oxbridge are UC institutions, even if accessed by other classes), cultural knowledge (eg vocab can indicate your class; or dress, as your colleagues point out). There are often subtle “rules”, not evident to outsiders (eg graveyard vs cemetery = different classes use different words).

Economics. Well, yes, to be an elite, you need to be rich. But there are always exceptions.

Publishing, for eg, is a very MC job. Requires high education levels. BUT usually pays very poorly.
Or Football, as pp said, is a WC sport, so even a rich footballer or his wife will almost always be thought of as WC (& culturally their WC status will be evident via their accents or poor grammar).

Class tends to be based on what you were born into. Children may shift the class of their own children by marrying up or down. So if a WC woman were to marry a rich old Etonian and have kids, other UC people may not accept her as UC (unless she worked very hard to hide her WC accent, any WC cultural preferences etc), but her kids would be UC. See kate Middleton and the snide remarks against her background.

Ultimately, who cares. Class is a way of keeping people down (or up, for the UC). It starts at birth.

This "claiming" to be working class has much more to do with not wanting to be middle class than what people think of as success

working class has substance

upperclass don't give a monkey

middle of that is nothing really that people want to be, they can't claim to be upper and so they go lower

Its all inverted snobbery and such like

Its fascinating how people want to be perceived and thats what keeps the class system going and many posts on the board about the class system - often started by people that aren't intrenched in the system from the start

@biddybird

When do you change class?

You can't. That's entirely the point.

If you can't change class, where are we with the daughter of a manual labourer becoming a lawyer and owning property in London, or our middle class person who failed their exams and became a teenage mother?

There's as many people saying that the lawyer is no longer working class as there is saying you can't change class. Which is it? If there was anything systematic about the whole process, there would be some consensus, which there clearly isn't.

Indecisive12 because MN is dominated by the chattering classes.

Interesting. I watched a news report maybe a decade ago which concluded that people were more likely to define themselves as middle class nowadays. They interviewed members of the public and I remember a woman working in a chippy self-defining as middle class.

I've often wondered the same about how class is defined. I think I've concluded it's upbringing. I'm very well-educated, live in a big house, high income. My accent gives me away. I was brought up dirt poor and I'll always be working class. I've noticed a difference in attitude and confidence between middle class and working class (amongst friends and students I've taught). I think on the whole, middle class people are more confident and have an expectation that things will work out for them in general, especially when it comes to anything work or education related. Big generalisation but I think the pattern is there.

My dad is a traditional working class hero. My kids will likely be middle class though.

@Jumpalicious

UC = the elite MC= the middling types LC= those deprived of many opportunities.

Your class depends on social and economic variables. This in turn depends on the family you are born into.

Social = things like education (eg Eton or oxbridge are UC institutions, even if accessed by other classes), cultural knowledge (eg vocab can indicate your class; or dress, as your colleagues point out). There are often subtle “rules”, not evident to outsiders (eg graveyard vs cemetery = different classes use different words).

Economics. Well, yes, to be an elite, you need to be rich. But there are always exceptions.

Publishing, for eg, is a very MC job. Requires high education levels. BUT usually pays very poorly.
Or Football, as pp said, is a WC sport, so even a rich footballer or his wife will almost always be thought of as WC (& culturally their WC status will be evident via their accents or poor grammar).

Class tends to be based on what you were born into. Children may shift the class of their own children by marrying up or down. So if a WC woman were to marry a rich old Etonian and have kids, other UC people may not accept her as UC (unless she worked very hard to hide her WC accent, any WC cultural preferences etc), but her kids would be UC. See kate Middleton and the snide remarks against her background.

Ultimately, who cares. Class is a way of keeping people down (or up, for the UC). It starts at birth.

YY to poorly paid professions. It's that second son thing, isn't it - go and occupy yourself with publishing or politics or the army, but you can still have a huge house thanks to family money. I know a lot of ppl like this.

Anecdatally, I see many wc people move through those kinds of jobs because they are so poorly paid. I only manage mine because of DH's income.