Percentage of Households with consumer durables, central heating, home internet access and cars by social class NS-SEC (2002)

Large employers and higher managerial / Higher professional / Lower managerial and professional / Intermediate / Small employers and own account / Lower supervisory and technical / Semi-routine / Routine
TV
colour / 100 / 98 / 99 / 99 / 99 / 100 / 98 / 99
digital / 37 / 30 / 35 / 30 / 38 / 41 / 32 / 30
Telephone (fixed or mobi) / 100 / 100 / 100 / 99 / 100 / 100 / 99 / 99
CH / 100 / 98 / 95 / 92 / 93 / 92 / 92 / 90
Washing Machine / 99 / 98 / 98 / 95 / 97 / 96 / 95 / 96
Deep freeze/fridge freezer / 97 / 96 / 97 / 96 / 96 / 97 / 96 / 96
Video recorder / 97 / 94 / 95 / 95 / 93 / 96 / 93 / 93
CD player / 98 / 97 / 96 / 94 / 90 / 93 / 87 / 88
Microwave / 93 / 89 / 89 / 89 / 91 / 94 / 93 / 92
Computer / 89 / 88 / 80 / 65 / 67 / 64 / 53 / 47
Internet access / 82 / 83 / 70 / 52 / 58 / 51 / 36 / 33
DVD player / 60 / 49 / 43 / 38 / 43 / 48 / 36 / 37
Tumble drier / 71 / 63 / 61 / 60 / 63 / 59 / 56 / 56
Dishwasher / 59 / 56 / 43 / 28 / 44 / 27 / 19 / 18
Car/van, 1+ / 61 / 50 / 43 / 31 / 54 / 32 / 21 / 24

Notes

Subordinate Classes today

  • Manual workers were not becoming middle class, but many becoming far better off through higher incomes
  • Able to buy domestic consumer goods
  • Affluent workers could buy houses, cars, washing machines, TVs
  • NB – ‘affluence’ was a cyclical phenomenon, not a permanent state
  • NB – these things acquired because of the opportunities that opened up (higher wages could buy more goods, invariably at lesser costs due to manufacturing/mechanisation – ie economies of scale which mean the more you produce, the lower the cost of production of each item) and not because they were the status symbols of a middle-class lifestyle.
  • Manual workers remain apart from non-manual workers
  • Not often in each other’s houses
  • Not often spending time together in leisure
  • Manual workers more often ‘home-centred’
  • Manual workers’ conditions remained inferior to even routine non-manual workers
  • Work was dreary & monotonous
  • Not intrinsically satisfying
  • Less security of employment
  • Inferior pension
  • Inferior holiday provision
  • Few opportunities for promotion
  • Often had to move long distances to obtain work
  • Tolerated only because of higher pay
  • The higher the pay, the more willing to tolerate inferior working conditions
  • Poverty remains ever-present possibility for manual workers
  • Poverty can be intermittent, longer and shorter periods
  • Not condemned to a life of poverty – new opportunities can arise
  • There is a substantial turnover among those in poverty
  • NB the ‘poor’ in the past, were not a separate underclass, they were part of the lower level of the working class or are part of the subordinate manual workers.
  • Instead of a class consciousness rooted in common cultural & political traditions and participation in the labour movement, manual workers more likely to see their society and their own position within it, in terms of a more open and flexible ‘money model’ of society, which stresses relative spending power rather than political power. Traditional class, status distinctions and even thelanguage of class now less relevant. New distinctions are rooted in levels of consumer spending/consumption. A declining class identity, seen in decline in traditional Labour vote (1940s-1990s). New Labour’s talk of a commitment to a ‘classless society’.
  • People likely to say they are members of a large class, containing virtually everyone in society, apart from the ‘very rich’ and ‘very poor’.
  • For others, almost a ‘classlessness’, all being in one huge group.