Social Class in Contemporary UK Society - Essay Example

SOCIAL IN CONTEMPORARY UK SOCIETY ………………….. college…………….. ………… Introduction There have been structural changes in social hierarchy and complementary swings in social values that have intensified individualism in the class-based politics and social system in the United Kingdom. It was argued that the growth of multinationals and public sector companies have eventually turned to be major factors that caused structural changes in shared life-styles and undermining of political objectives among the traditional working class (Marshall and Rose, 1989, p. 1). Social class and its underlying concepts of sociology, according to the view of some sociologists, are thus obsolete. This piece of research paper attempts to address the significance of social class of an individual in the contemporary UK society. This paper analyzes basic elements of social class in the present day UK society and finds how far it is significant in the society in relation to various factors like a person’s social status, education, family set up and marketing aspects. Social Class Social class, the fundamental concept of sociology, is one of the strongest health-status predictors and has long been widely used in morbidity and mortality studies. Social class demonstrates strong health divide prevailing in the UK and it thus links with poverty and background which explains why social class of the parents is a significant predictor of a person’s health (Hardill, Graham and Kofman, 2001, p. 120). Social class is one of the independent variables most commonly used by social scientists to shed light on social issues such as patterns of education, health, religious behaviour, divorce etc. social class is often viewed as a statistical category and thus researchers assign individuals to social classes on the basis certain factors like occupation, education, income and area of residence (Schaefer, 2005, p. 212). Significance of Social Class in Contemporary UK society Social class is often viewed objectively as it is assessed by inheritance, wealth or occupation or subjectively as assessed by the place the individual is belonging to. It is argued that the material consequences of class inequalities continue to be extremely important. Davies (2000) emphasized that even though classes might have changed, they still count for many social factors and therefore the concept of social class remains to be an essentially important factor to understanding the prevailing social conditions (p. 318). Traditionally, people were allocated in to one of the five hierarchically structured social classes in the UK in respect to the information they provide to certain census conducted by the government. Social class based on occupation are a) professional –eg- occupation, b) managerial and technical occupation, c) skilled occupation, including non-manual d) partly skilled occupation and e) unskilled occupation (Davies, 2000, 319) Social class is more clearly associated with the differences in morbidity and mortality rates (Schaefer, 2005, p. 414). People from the lower society in most countries including UK have been found to have higher rates of mortality and disability than others. Social class is closely associated with health because low-income people and their living conditions including crowded living environments, poor diet, substandard housing, employment or any other related stress contribute much to their ill-health. Lower class people, due to their poor education, are found to be less aware of how to maintain good health as well. More specifically, financial strains are also influencing factors in the health problems of such lower-class people. When it comes to the UK social situations, social class is an important element in determining the family background, standard and quality of life, length of an individual’s life etc. As Kirkup and Pierce (2008) argued that social class is still an important divide as it plays vital role in determining an individual’s factors that divide him from the society he belongs to. Kirkup and Pierce (2008) highlighted, based on Prime Minister’s excerpt, that a child’s social class background at birth is a significant predictor of how well he or she will perform at school or later in his or her life. It also can be noted that social mobility has not improved in Britain even though poverty has been reduced and the rate of increase in inequality has been reduced. Though there has been greater efforts on tackling inequality, it is highly important to note that inequality is not just coming from gender, race, sexual orientation or disability, but rather the living condition, social class, family background and wealth are often more significant factors that overarches all these racial and sexual inequalities (Kirkup and Pierce, 2008). Most sociologists strongly believe that children inherit the privileged or less-privileged social and economic status and related factors from their parents. The conflict sociologists pointed out that social class of parents significantly impact their children’s socialization experiences and the level of protection they receive in the society. More specifically, a child’s socio-economic standard will definitely be influenced by his or her parent’s socio-economic backgrounds, including the nutrition, health care, housing, education status, living standard, quality of life and many other aspects of the life (Schaefer, 2005, p. 305). This argument by conflict theorists illustrates that social class is an important element in the UK society that describes how a person’s life and social involvement can be largely influenced by his parents social status. Social class has long been an important element to determine the purchase behaviour of the customers and assess the potential market strength for various products. Social classification has always been found to be an integral part of most questionnaire surveys to identify various market segments or recognize the purchasing behaviour of a particular social class segment. In the UK, the market researcher conducts his research mainly in relation to the head of the household. The occupation of the head of the household is thus noted for the market study in the UK mainly to assess social classification (Stone and Desmond, 2007, p. 60). Social class may vary in its importance because, in the UK, it is an important and rather powerful explanatory element in determining purchasing behaviour for market research or social status in sociological studies. Social class represents a person’s attitudes towards various factors including education, leisure, holiday and spending on many other purposes. Middle class men are normally expected that they must be knowledgeable and more aware about how or where to consume alcohol than their lower class people. Middle-class women are not supposed to be seen in public houses due to that these places are normally occupied by working-class men (Stone and Desmond, 2007, p. 60). Conclusion This paper has presented a brief outline in to the description of social class and detailed the significance of social class in the contemporary UK society. This paper highlighted that social class is an important divide in the UK society and is an extremely significant factor that determines a person’s social status, family background, education, socio-economic status etc. References Davies, M, (2000), The Blackwell encyclopaedia of social work, second edition, Wiley Blackwell, Hardill, I, Graham, D.T and Kofman, E (2001), Human geography of the UK: an introduction, Illustrated edition, Routledge Kirkup, J and Pierce, A (2008), Harriet Harman: Social class is still most important divide in Britain, UK News, The Telegraph, Retrieved December 31, 2010 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2712372/Harriet-Harman-Social-class-is-still-most-important-divide-in-Britain.html Marshall, G and Rose, D (1989), Social Class in Modern Britain, Routledge Schaefer, R.T (2005), Sociology, A Brief introduction, Sixth edition, McGraw Hill Stone, M. A and Desmond, J, (2007), Fundamentals of Markets: A Critical Evaluation, Illustrated edition, Taylor and Francis Read More