Social class
- Social class is usually measured by occupation. The upper class holds great wealth, often inherited; the middle class works in professional and managerial jobs; the working class works in manual and routine jobs.
- Life chances are a person's chances of having good things in life, such as good health, education, housing and a long life.
- Life chances are strongly linked to class: on average, people in higher classes live longer and healthier lives and do better at school.
Social mobility
- Social mobility is movement between classes. Intergenerational mobility compares a person's class with their parents'; intragenerational mobility is movement within a person's own lifetime.
- Upward mobility can come from education and new opportunities; research suggests Britain still has limited mobility, with class background strongly affecting where people end up.
The underclass
- Murray argued an underclass had formed, living on welfare benefits, with high rates of crime and lone parenthood, and a culture of dependency.
- Critics argue this blames the poor, and that poverty is caused by structural factors such as a lack of jobs, not by culture.
Key terms
- Life chances
- A person's chances of having good things in life, such as health and education.
- Social mobility
- Movement between social classes.
- Intergenerational mobility
- Mobility between generations of a family.
- Intragenerational mobility
- Mobility within a person's own lifetime.
- Underclass
- A group said to be below the working class, dependent on welfare.
- Upper class
- A small group holding great wealth, often inherited.