Some very interesting results here, not least 34% considering teacher working class, or large majorities saying skilled trades are working class (not disputing this, just interesting!) - ThreadSky

ralphscott.bsky.social • 78 days ago

Some very interesting results here, not least 34% considering teacher working class, or large majorities saying skilled trades are working class (not disputing this, just interesting!)

Reposted from YouGov

Which jobs do Britons see as middle or working class?

yougov.co.uk/society/arti...

Comments

ralphscott.bsky.social•78 days ago

(many of those in skilled trades will be small business owners, even if just sole traders, and may have incomes much higher than some of the professions listed here - although would be interesting to put % on this)

psurridge.bsky.social•78 days ago

It is almost a 'does it needs books' measure. Perhaps this is a whole new occupational classification.

ralphscott.bsky.social•78 days ago

Yes, and there also seems to be something about whether you are interacting with the public/providing a service, whereas the purported middle class jobs are those you can primarily do from home now! (although of course call centre workers can also WFH)

ralphscott.bsky.social•78 days ago

I suppose doctors are the exception on the other side - although apparently radiologists can now do quite a lot of their work from home!

psurridge.bsky.social•78 days ago

As far as I can tell my GP mostly works from home too!

danjdevine.bsky.social•78 days ago

'Are they likely to have glasses?'

mariosrichards.bsky.social•78 days ago

Really also want a breakdown of various measures people associate with each occupation (security/unionisation/stability).

My *reckon* is that the measure people have in their heads is a dichotomous "more/less secure than average"

ralphscott.bsky.social•78 days ago

Yes this makes sense as an interpretation - although I think respondents might be surprised by the precarity in some 'middle class' jobs, such as journalism, arts and increasingly academia.

(often facilitated by those from middle class backgrounds having resources to fall back on of course...)

mariosrichards.bsky.social•78 days ago

Yeah - I meant to stress *perception*.

Suspect if you gave details about precarity people would reposition (as long as it was clear it's involuntary - precarious jobs with high incomes and alternate options != baseline "zero-hours jobs" category).

mariosrichards.bsky.social•78 days ago

(In broad sense of keeping job/pay keeping pace with inflation/pay level defended)

mariosrichards.bsky.social•78 days ago

Having tried to absorb and analyse all the different sociological schemes of job categorisation, I'm kind of left thinking the least-hubristic measure is "roughly rank occupations on security, weight by % of pop in those occupations, then cut into upper/lower groups around the 50% mark.

psurridge.bsky.social•78 days ago

I do think asking people to rate them like this is a useful way to do it but it is probably not measuring 'class' in any of the sociological senses. If I remember correctly the original Cambridge scale is built this way.

mariosrichards.bsky.social•78 days ago

I think those 'sociological' definitions are good for looking at the variation *that isn't merely linear/dichotomous* - makes a huge difference if you're rural supervisor, rural worker ...

ralucahippie.bsky.social•78 days ago

Interesting how "company director" is overwhelmingly middle class, while "plumber" is working class - a lot of plumbers are directors of their own company even though they're effectively sole traders - or at most employing one or two family members.

ralphscott.bsky.social•78 days ago

Yes I had the same thought! Would be interesting to know what proportion of plumbers are employees vs sole traders (some will be both!)

ralucahippie.bsky.social•78 days ago

From my experience in a workers' rights charity, solid majority are sole traders. Even when they are subcontracted by large companies and they're more like agency workers - the construction industry has a lot of gray area false self employment.

ralucahippie.bsky.social•78 days ago

It's also quite common for builders and plumbers to have one main job (either as a/worker /subcontractor or more rarely an employee) and do extra self-employed work on the side.

ralucahippie.bsky.social•78 days ago

Not entirely sure why some stayed self-employed as sole traders and some open Ltd's even though they don't hire other people - there is a fiscal logic to it.

ralucahippie.bsky.social•78 days ago

Like - would a plumber be considered as having moved from the working class to the middle class once he has a firm with employees other than himself? Or only when he has so many employees he no longer needs to do the work himself?

ralphscott.bsky.social•78 days ago

I think most class schema would treat self-employed separately, and distinguish between small business owners with and without employees. But whether this aligns with the public's binary classification is another thing!

mathildevanditmars.eu•78 days ago

I love this!!

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