Social Factors: Class Flashcards
What is social class?
- How social researchers classify people on the basis of their occupations and, to some extent, their income.
- Explains various forms of typical behaviour, including political attitude and voting trends.
- Strong - but beginning to decline as a factor
AB classification (2011 census)
- Higher and intermediate managerial, administrative, professional occupations.
- Includes: banker, doctor, company director.
- 22.17% of the population.
C1
- Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial professional occupations.
- Includes: teacher, office manager, social worker.
- 30.84% of the population.
C2
- Skilled manual occupations.
- Includes: plumber, hairdresser, mechanic.
- 20.94% of the population.
DE
- Semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations, unemployed and lowest grade occupations.
- Includes: Labourers, bar staff, call centre staff.
- 26.05% of the population.
How much social class influence the way people vote?
- Changed since the 1960s - 80% voted according to their social class:
+ AB favoured Conservatives and DE favoured Labour
+ C1, typically but not overwhelmingly Conservative and C2 was Labour. - Political battle - largely fought among two types of voters - those who class identity was not clear and deviant voters.
What is deviant voting?
Individual does not vote the way we would expect then to, considering their social characteristics (class).
- For example, working-class Conservatives and wealthy entrepreneurial Labour supporters.
What is floating voting?
Voter who votes unpredictably in different elections and who is liable to change the way they vote fairly often.
Class voting for Conservatives
AB% voting Conservative:
- 1964 = 78%
- 1997= 59%
- 2010 = 40%
- 2017 = 43%
- 2019 = 45%
Class voting for Labour
DE:
- 1964 = 64%
- 1997 = 59%
- 2010 = 40%
- 2017 = 59%
- 2019 = 39%
- More likely to vote leave in EU 2016 (64% compared to 43% from AB).
Reasons why social class affected voting?
- Voting a particular party was part of class identity = Tories governed in the middle and upper-class interest and Labour’s policies for the working class.
- Parties developed roots within communities = wealthy Londoners voted Conservatives, while poor East Londoners was a Labour community.
2019 analysis
- Voters of DE voting for Labour fell from 59% to 39% whilst AB voting for Conservatives increased from 43% to 45%.
- Main reason for voting was was Brexit - people changed support as Jeremy Corbyn was disliked (little clear vision) and people wanted a hard Brexit - broke the ‘Red Wall’ of traditionally Labour constituencies.
Reasons why class voting has shifted from 2010
- Even in 1964’s class conscious era, with 64% of DE voting for Labour, 1/3 of the working class voted for the Conservatives.
- Deviant Conservative support was due to ‘deference’ - the tendency for some to respect their superiors, aka the middle and upper class.
- Some MC/UP aspired to climb the social ladder.
- ‘New Labour’ managed to attract the middle class from the Conservatives - decline reflected this as Old Labour too far-left (possibly explains dislike of Jeremny Corbyn).
- In contrast, correlation of AB and Conservatives are stronger - fewer deviants in this class.
Deeper causes for the decline of class voting
+ Class dealignment = fewer people define themselves in terms of class - reduced in importance of UK culture.
+ Centralisation of the main parties = Includes the Lib Dems, so they can appeal to a wider class base and be elected.
+ Rise in the influence of other factors - aka valance.
