Are you a precariat, new affluent worker or elite? Study reveals there are now SEVEN social classes in the new jargon-filled British class system
- Study comes five decades after hit Frost Report sketch on three classes featuring John Cleese and the Two Ronnies
- Elite people make up six per cent and have savings of more than £140,000 and top university education
- The 'Precariat' group sits at bottom of the classes and make up 15 per cent of Britain and earn £8,000 after tax
- More than 160,000 people have taken part in BBC's Great British Class Survey
By Steve Doughty, Social Affairs Correspondent
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There was a time when the British class system was quite simple.
Often the subject of satire – most notably in the Frost Report sketch of the 1960s – it basically came down to Upper, Middle and Lower.
Half a century on, however, the BBC and academics claim that is outdated and we now fall into seven social groups.
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Top dogs: There is an 'elite' - just 6 per cent of people - who have savings of more than £140,000, many social contacts and education at top universities, according to the BBC's Great British Class Survey
At the bottom: The 'precariat' group is 'marked by the lack of any significant amount of economic, cultural or social capital', said Professor Mike Savage, of the London School of Economics and Political Science
Wealthy: The average age of this group is 46 and they tend to work in management or traditional professions and mainly come from middle class backgrounds
For instance, if you’re a van driver on less than £160 a week who doesn’t like jazz, you must be a member of the Precariat.
On the other hand, if your income is over £89,000 a year, you have a comfortable private pension, and you go to dinner parties with lawyers and dentists, you belong to the Elite.
The new social scale, backed by the BBC and called the Great British Class Survey Experiment, tries to take into account the music we listen to, the people we mix with, and the likelihood that we use social networks, to determine where we stand.
More than 160,000 people took part in the poll via the BBC website.
New class: Only six per cent of people are classed as Technical Middle Class. People in this group tend to mix with people similar to themselves and enjoy highbrow culture and tend to live in the suburbs
Bang in the middle: The New Affluent Workers are youthful and are sit in the middle in terms of wealth. Many of the group tend to live in former manufacturing areas in the Midlands and North West
On the decline: A much smaller percentage than may have been expected are in the Traditional Working Class group, which has the oldest average age at 66
Financially insecure: The 19 per cent of Britain that are classed as an Emergent Service Worker tend to be young and have low scores for saving and house value but spend time enjoying emerging culture and socialising
Freshly-identified classes include a Technical Middle Class, which contains aircraft pilots, radiographers and social researchers, and New Affluent Workers, children of the old working class who went to new universities, many of them people working in sales.
Call centre workers and chefs fall into an ‘Emergent Service Sector’ of educated young people in insecure jobs who are well versed in popular music, sport and social networks.
The Precariat – a word coined from
precarious and the Marxist jargon proletariat – make up nearly one in
six of the population.
The survey said they have tiny incomes, no savings, rent their homes, have the least cultural interests of any social class, and are ‘the most deprived’.
A high concentration of the Precariat,
the survey claims, can be found in Stoke-on-Trent.
One of the academics
who drew up the new scale, Manchester University sociology professor
Fiona Devine, said it presented a ‘more sophisticated, nuanced picture
of what class is like now’.
She added: ‘It is what is in the middle which is really interesting and exciting, there is a much more fuzzy area between the traditional working class and traditional middle class.’
But author and social commentator Jill
Kirby said: ‘This survey has kept sociologists busy, but it is a
doubtful use of BBC resources. It does show how difficult it is to
categorise people.
'But it also shows there is plenty of social mobility – even the Precariat can escape more easily than the working class of 50 years ago.’
The BBC scale, produced with the help of the state-run Economic and Social Research Council and academics from six universities, follows the 1980s teachings of French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, who said class depended on culture, taste and who you mix with as well as the kind of job you have.
The report said: ‘We have been able to
discern a distinctive elite, whose sheer economic advantage sets it
apart from other classes.
'The fact this elite group is also shown to have the most privileged backgrounds is an important demonstration of the accentuation of social advantage at the top of British society.’
It said fewer than four out of ten people are counted as part of traditional working or middle classes.
The Frost Report sketch from 1966 made fun of the British class system but was acclaimed for its simplicity.
It featured Ronnie Barker saying to a tall John Cleese: ‘I look up to him because he is upper-class.’ He then added to small Ronnie Corbett: ‘But I look down on him, because he is lower-class. I am middle-class.’
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Experts: Professor Mike Savage (left), of the London School of Economics and Political Science, carried out the research with Professor Fiona Devine (right), of the University of Manchester
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