Many of these things can be interlinked, for example education and your occupation. An array of factors suggests that higher classes tend to perform better in school and therefore will get better qualifications and ultimately get the higher classes jobs such as professions and service class jobs. A higher class home has better conditions for working in, for example they may have better resources, computers, books etc. Another issue is family size, middle classes and upper classes tend to have a smaller family and a larger home, this gives the child a space of their own and leads to a less disturbed working. Parental encouragement also plays a role, as in some working class cases the parents may not push the child to exceed the parents and do better as they deem their life and achievements as enough. As it is your occupation, which is a deciding factor in your social class, this is a very important part of the argument for social class mattering.
And believe it or not your social class can also affect how long you will live. Because upper and middle classes tend to have a better lifestyle, i.e. do more exercise, maybe belong to a gym or do more other outdoors activities life tennis etc they are more fit and therefore will live longer. Where as the stereotypical working class person would be more likely to be sat in front of the television or in a pub of a weekend. But there is one disease that is predominantly a middle/upper class item, skin cancer. As these classes are richer and tend to holiday to foreign and more sunny destinations they expose themselves to more intense sunlight and therefore become more susceptible to skin cancer. But on the whole life expectancy rises with a raise in class. In an extreme case study the Queen Mother could be looked at, she is at the top of the English aristocracy and apart from the affects of old age that nobody can stop she is much fitter and more lively then any other 101 yr old. Obviously this is another argument that supports the title of this essay.
One other perspective, maybe one of lesser importance, but still a key point is that Britain does need a hierarchy system. And this is provided in the form of a class system, although it could be argued that a class system doesn’t really affect people. And that it is just something for the upper classes to make them feel more important, it is something that saturates every part of our lives, from the clothes we buy to the cars we drive to the areas we choose to live in. We run our lives in the image that we perceive ourselves. And most of that is based on the class we think we are. I think that this is a fundamental part of life; we need a hierarchy to keep people happy and their image of themselves.
This ideology can also be used by companies and advertisers to promote their products etc, this links social class in with the economy making it imperative to the business side of our country.
Life chances, these are the things that are on offer to us or things that we can aspire to with a hope of achieving. Things such as owning a better car then most of the population or having a larger house. These chances are increased by the higher you are in the social scale. This means that people strive for a better social class to try and improve yours and your future generations lives through inherited class.
Anthony Whymark 10 T.
31/01/02
