Examining the Social Class Structure of the United Kingdom

This assignment analyzes the social class structure in the United Kingdom, focusing on the upper middle class, lower middle class, working class, and underclass. It highlights the characteristics of each class, such as the unemployment rates of the underclass and the types of jobs held by the working and lower-middle classes. The assignment references the work of Chandola (2000) and Kahl and Gilbert (1998) to provide a comprehensive overview of the social class system in the UK. It explores the percentage of the population that belongs to each class. The assignment provides insights into the distribution of wealth and opportunities across different social strata within the UK.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY Assignment 6 – Social Class

SOCIOLOGY 1
Introduction
I am taking a social class of United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is one of the capitalist
countries in the world. According to the Kahl and Gilbert (1998), six social classes United
Kingdom has are: Upper middle class, Lower middle class, Working class, and Underclass
(Chandola, T. 2000).
Underclass:
Underclass people are those people who are "chronically unemployed" and has a characteristic of
long-term unemployment and lives in council housing. Almost 12% of UK population belongs to
this class.
Working class:
Working class consist of unskilled, semi- skilled and skilled working class. Unskilled and semi-
skilled working class people are those people who left their school or forced them to leave the
school are working in assembly line factory in Britain (Chandola, et al., 2000). Skilled people are
those who are highly educated and traditionally working in construction and manufacturing
industry. Almost all the population is working in the UK. Among all 60% of the total population
belongs to working class.
Lower middle class:
British lower middle class are consist of those people who are working in an office (Chandola, et
al., 2000). They are mostly worked as unskilled worker and work in a retail sale, factory labor,
etc. the population belong to lower middle class in the UK is approx. 10%.

SOCIOLOGY 2
Upper middle class:
In Britain, the upper middle class is those type of people who are born to a family who has a
traditionally high income as this class is more defined by their family background in spite of
their job and income (Chandola, et al., 2000). What people belongs to this category is 15% of
total population in the UK.

SOCIOLOGY 3
References
Chandola, T. (2000). Social class differences in mortality using the new UK National Statistics
Socio-Economic Classification. Social science & medicine, 50(5), 641-649.