Upper, middle and working-class… Forget it!

Great British Class Survey suggests traditional division is outdated. Now, we live with seven social groups despite three

We have always been told that there are three different social classes: upper, middle and working-class. It has been the model to understand society in modern ages. But now, BBC’s Great British Class Survey states that British society (and we can assimilate it to all Western societies) has seven social groups, different from the traditional three.

Are we still living in a three class society? // The Guardian

Sociologists who elaborated this study pointed that nowadays we can’t split society only for revenues. Social life and cultural capital also have to be taken into account. According to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, people whom know and what they do contribute to your class and says at least as much as income does.

According to this study, from now on we will be able to label ourselves with one of these seven tags:

• Elite. Same as former upper class, it’s the most privileged group and has the highest scoring economically, socially and culturally.
• Established middle class. It scores high in culture and sociability and it’s the second wealthiest group.
• Technical middle class. They have money but they have little social life. They also like emerging culture such as video games or indie music.
• New affluent workers. They usually are young people, with middle income but socially and culturally active. They usually own a house away from major cities.
• Traditional working class. It scores low economically, socially and culturally. They very often own a house and are the oldest group.
• Emergent service workers. They are the “live for today” people. It’s an educated young urban class without much money but very social and cultural.
• Precariat. Poorest class. They have the lowest score in economy, sociability and culture.

The lead sociologist of the class survey Fiona Devine points that “there isn’t a clear hierarchy like in the past” between classes. Nowadays, middle class groups are at a similar level in society.

BBC explain these new social classes in its website, with data from more than 160,000 interviews.

It’s quite important that studies like this will be made. In the 21^st century society is very different from the one after the Industrial Revolution. Today we have the Internet and mobile phones and live in a very globalized capitalist economy. Our life is different and we need new knowledge to understand society, in order to find how does it work and how can we progress.

If you would like to know where are you with these new social classes, the BBC’s website offers the opportunity to know where are you in the new social groups.

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