Class: Studies explaining patterns and trends

Question 1

Rowlingson and Mullineux

Answer 1

• Birmingham report on income and wealth
• Found a clear link between age and class.
• The older people get, the larger the gap of inequality as people have more time to either accumulate their wealth or remain poor.

Question 2

Atkinson

Answer 2

• An increasing proportion of national income now comes from inherited wealth.
• Shows that wealth is not an indicator of individual talent as people just inherit the wealth that their parents accumulated.

Question 3

Roberts:

Answer 3

Adapted data from the OMS and NCDS to analyse chances in social mobility (20th century)
Findings found:
- Working class got small and intermediate and service and intermediate class expanded
- The chance of working-class men moving to the service class raised significantly from 16% to 26%