Has class identity changed?

Has class identity changed?

1. Underclass

   • Those at the bottom of society
   • Term is now often used in a negative way to describe those who rely on benefits
   • Murray
     • Underclass are unemployed, single parents, drug addicts and criminals. They are lazy, workshy, immoral, criminal and dependent on benefits. It is their own fault they have a culture based on idleness, failure and criminality
   • Jordan
     • The underclass have the same values and attitudes as everyone else in society most would work if they had the chance

2. Pakulski and Waters

   • Shift from production to consumption in defining identities

3. Offe

   • fewer and fewer individuals share a common, unifying experience of full time work

4. There has been a decline in manual work, this means that a sense of working class identity has changed and solidarity weakened

5. New working class identity

   • Skeggs
     • Working class women have instrumental attitude to work. Means to an end. Capitalism is an effective means of rising living standards. Individualism putting themselves first