Consequent to the hype today after the BBC announced the
findings the ‘Great British Class Survey’, I decided to ‘take
the test’. Three sections later I
discovered myself amongst those who are ‘Precariat‘. Whilst
I was pleased to discover an unexpected solidarity with the poor, the accompanying
description of us didn't, somehow, feel it quite described my experience of life: ‘This is the poorest and most deprived class
group. People in this group score low
for economic, social and cultural factors: They tend to mix socially with people like
them. Jobs in this group include
cleaner, van driver and care worker. They
tend not to have a broad range of cultural interests. People in this group
often live in old industrial areas away from urban centres. More than 80% rent
their home.’
My suspicions aroused, I decided to try again but, this
time, to indicate that I earned an ‘average’ wage. With no other changes I was immediately
elevated to the category of ‘New Affluent Worker’. Ah, I thought, what might happen if I said I owned the
house in which we now live? Again, with no other changes, I was re-classified as ‘Established Middle
Class’.
I am sure that Professor Mike Savage (Fellow of the British
Academy, Professor of Sociology and Director of the York European Centre for
Cultural Sociology at the University of York) and Professor Fiona Devine (Professor
of Sociology and Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of
Manchester) who designed the ‘BBC Lab UK's Great British Class Survey’ were doing
their best but I cannot help but think this brief survey rather absurd. Without even asking if you read books it manages, with just six questions, to classify someones place in society mainly, it would seem, on their financial status. I fear that most of us who are on a Pension and rent their home are now amongst the ‘Precariat’. Perhaps
the Government should take note?
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