British society 2: the social profile of Britain

Today

• Notices: UCAS, moodle quizes, academic engagement (5%), moodle password

• Urbanization• An ageing population• Families, divorce and relationships• Class divisions and wealth

Peer interview

• Define ‘family’• What is a typical family in your country:– Division of labour (i.e. paid work and housework)– Size– Shape

• In Britain, it is said there are three classes: the upper class; the middle class; the working class– Describe each of these classes– Compare to your country

The social profile of Britain has changed…

• Britain heavily populated:– more than twice as

densely populated as France

– nine times as densely populated as USA

– 100 times as densely populated as Australia

• Britain ranks 18th in the world in population size.

The social profile is changing…

• England 84% of total population, Wales 5%, Scotland roughly 8.5%, Northern Ireland, less than 3%

Administrative Division

Population (mid-2004)

Population (mid-2005)

Population (mid-2006)

Population (mid-2007)

England 50,093,800 50,431,700 50,762,900 51.1 million

Northern Ireland

1,710,300 1,724,400 1,741,600 1.8 million

Scotland 5,078,400 5,094,800 5,116,900 5.1 million

Wales 2,952,500 2,958,600 2,965,900 3.0 million

United Kingdom 59,834.900 60,209.500 60,587,600 60,975,000

Changes in the Social Profile: 2001 Census

• London's population was 7,172,000 on the latest Census Day of April 2001.

• This is 14.6 per cent of the total population of Britain.

• Why is it important that somany people live inLondon?

An expanding and ageing population

• Mid-2009:– Estimated resident population of the UK was 61,792,000, up by

394,000 on the previous year. • Under 16s represented one in five of the total population• Around the same proportion as those of retirement age. • The population is aging

– Implications for health and – education

services– Implications for employment

National Statistics Online

How else is the Social Profile changing?

• Families • Social class• Gender• Ethnic minorities

Variances in family structure• Mummy, daddy, baby• Mummy, baby• Daddy, baby• Grandpa, grandma and baby• Mummy, mummy, baby• Daddy, daddy, baby

Ideas of what it ‘better’ vary from culture to culture and time period i.e. are culturally and historically relevant

As sociologists, we can be descriptive rather than prescriptive

The Nuclear Family • ‘a unit consisting of spouses and their dependent children’

(Scott & Marshall 2009:243) • Talcott Parsons (1995) nuclear family:

– fits industrial needs – allows mobility/ independence of wider kin– ensures children have limited set of stable relationships

• Some argue:– nuclear and extended unit falling apart;– Failing to provide for elderly and disabled;– Suffering from moral problems;– Lacking in parenting skills;– Looking automatically to the state for support.

Cohabitation • Married couples will be outnumbered by those

who never marry.• Cohabitation increasing (couples of the same or

different genders living together outside marriage)– In 2004, 12% of 16-59-yr-old were cohabiting.– 1.6 million cohabiting

couples– Many of these relation-

ships are stable and long-term.

Marriage

• Rapid decline in number of marriages since 1970s

• 40% of all marriages today are second marriages• Britain has highest divorce rate in Europe• 40% end in divorce• 25% of all first marriages fail in first five years• Divorce rates highest among those on low

income, or younger • Marrying later (28 for men and 26 for women)

David Morgan (The Family, 1985)

• Marriage has become medicalised• Therapists, marriage guidance• How can marriage success be measured?

Jessie Bernard (The Future of Marriage, 1972)

• There is not one marriage, but two– The wife’s – The husband’s

• Marriage is more beneficial for men than women – better psychological health– less stress

• Inequalities of marriage reflect inequalities in the sexes in society

Critical thinking

• Divorce rates in your your country?

• Changes over time?• Attitudes to divorce and

single parent families in your country?

• How do these differ from attitudes in the UK?

Divorce and single parent families

• Divorce:– Greater independence of women– Changes in the law in 1971– Greater social acceptance

• Single parent families:– 8% of all families in 1972– 22% by 1995– 1.3 million one-parent families in

2004– 89% of parents are women– One third of children under 5 have

divorced parents

Single parent families• ‘Illegitimate’ becomes ‘non-marital’• Rapid increase in number of

children born outside of marriage– 1961: 6% of all births– 2007: 44.4%– Reflects increase in cohabitation

• Highest in poorer areas with high unemployment

• Ethnic dimension: higher rates amongst Caribbean families

Low birth rate

• Child-bearing delayed, average age for first child is 28 (seven years older than in 1971)

• Some women delay even longer for educational and career reasons– Increase in the number of single women and

married/unmarried couples childless by choice– Choice to limit families– Contraception more widespread– Voluntary sterilization of both sexes more common

• Legal abortions have increased

The Family & Change

• Discourses of moral decline, versus discourses of changing moral values

• What’s your opinion?• Regardless, change in

family structures are having massive implications on British social life

The changing family: a summary• Smaller families• More people living alone• An increase in one-parent families and non-marital

births;• High divorce rates;• More people living longer and contributing to an

ageing population;• More working mothers and wives;• More cohabiting couples;• Decline in marriage.

What is class?

• A form of stratification:– A way to divide people in a society

• Identified through employment, speech, clothing or beliefs

• Perpetuated through media, word of mouth and language

Social Class

• Whether (or how strongly) you identify yourself as a member of a social class will depend on:

• Personal history• Family background• Occupation• Personal experiences of struggle and conflict

British Social Class

• Social class still a feature of British society

• Traditionally based on employment

• Traditionally seen as having three classes– Upper class– Middle class– Working/lower class

British Social Class

• Industrialisation in 19th C. fragmented class: – Working class into skilled and unskilled workers– Middle class into lower, middle, and upper middle

(depending on job classification or wealth)– Upper class: still largely defined by birth, property,

and inherited money

British Social Class

• 20th century: – Spread of education, expansion of wealth to

more people.– Allowed more social mobility (moving upwards

out of the class into which one was born).– Working class more upwardly mobile– Upper class lost aristocratic privilege, merged

with middle class– Old rigid class system breaking down?

Social Class & Change• The Working Class?• Changes in the nature of

employment raises questions as to whether there is still a ‘working class’

• Notions of an ‘underclass’ (Charles Murray)– Permanently unemployed– Single-parent families– The very poor– The alienated & alternative lifestyles

• Yet perception of ‘class conflict’ still exists– In 1948 48% of people thought a

‘class struggle’ existed– In 1995 81% of people thought so

Social Class & Change• much movement between and

within classes• Changes in wealth distribution

and universal education have softened class boundaries

• But, gap between rich and poor is still a factor in British society

• Most fluidity has taken place within the middle classes

• “We’re all middle class now.”Are we?

Social Class

• The 1995-96 British Social Attitudes Survey showed that 69 per cent of people thought that a person’s social class affected his or her opportunities a ‘great deal’ or ‘quite a lot.’

• In a different survey, two-thirds of those interviewed agreed that ‘there is one law for the rich and one for the poor’ and that ‘ordinary people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth’ (Woodward, 2004)

Social Class

• Some people see ‘working class’ as a positive label they identify with;

• Others reject it as stigmatizing or patronizing.• Most people in Britain still describe

themselves in class terms, and a majority still see themselves as working class (Woodward, 2004, p96).

Erosion of Identities Based on Work

• Some sociologists say ‘class is dead’ (Pakulski and Waters, 1996)

• Evidence for this is:– Change in social and economic structures – The rise of other sources of identity (not just class)– For example, in post-war era, strong working-class

identity among miners, manufacturers, trade unions, etc. (mostly men).

Erosion of Identities Based on Work

• In 1990s Labour Party worked hard to shed any identification with the working class, seeking the ‘middle’ social ground. (Remember last week’s lecture? Tony Blair continued many of the Conservatives’ policies…Thatcherism with a human face?)

• Work-based identity replaced with other identities: – rising importance of gender – and ethnic identities

• Social class is both a central and a highly contested concept within social science.

Wealth and Class Identity in Britain

• Reproduction of class:– Wealth – Education

• Social mobility one of lowest among western nations:– Stereotypes/ stigma

• Top 1% has enormous control and influence: ‘The Establishment’

Share Of The Wealth1% of population owns 21% of wealth

Wealth and Class Identity

• According to the Inland Revenue in 2000:• Over half (53%) of the financial wealth in the UK was

owned by 10% of the population.• Most people had virtually no financial cushion:– The less wealthy half of the UK population in the 1990s

had less than £500 per household in savings (and owned only 6% in total of the financial wealth);

– The least wealthy quarter had savings of less than £50 (Woodward, p. 93)

Conclusions

• Changes in the family• Changes (or not) in class structures and

ideologies

Homework

• Giddens, A., Sociology, Sixth Edition, (Cambridge: Polity Press), 2009. Chapter 1.

• Macionis, J. J. and Plummer, K., Sociology. A Global Introduction, Fourth Edition, (Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.), 2008. Chapter 1.

• Moodle forum• Recommended reading:– Singer, P., (2000) Marx: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford:

OUP– Durkheim, E. & Buss, R., (2006) On suicide, London: Penguin,

2006.