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Social Class and Families

Social Class and Families. Upper class: 1-2%. As much of their income from investments as wages. Exclusive neighborhoods, schools, clubs. Elaborate social code. Key challenge: social reproduction (passing position to next generation) Amerco: top managers Little good research: why?.

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Social Class and Families

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  1. Social Class and Families • Upper class: 1-2%. As much of their income from investments as wages. Exclusive neighborhoods, schools, clubs. Elaborate social code. • Key challenge: social reproduction (passing position to next generation) • Amerco: top managers • Little good research: why? Sociology 1201

  2. Upper middle class • Professional and managerial positions, mostly in large bureaucracies. College and professional degrees. • 20-25% of the population. • The rest of Amerco’s management class • Key challenge: social reproduction and upward mobility Sociology 1201

  3. Lower middle class White collar jobs that do not require a college degree Small business 25-30% of population. Amerco support staff Key challenges Working class Blue collar and service jobs that do not require a college degree 25-30% of popul. Amerco factory workers Often just one lay-off or one divorce away from poverty The working class majority Sociology 1201

  4. Poverty class • Government poverty line around $18,000 for family of 4 • Majority work full-time, although very vulnerable to layoffs • High proportion of single parent families • Key challenge: Sociology 1201

  5. Income Fifths: 2001 Sociology 1201

  6. Trends • Top fifth has dramatically increased its share in the last 30 years and especially the last 15 • Second fifth holding its own • Other 3/5 losing income share and it would be much worse were it not for the growth of two-wage earner families Sociology 1201

  7. Inequality • Wealth is even more unequally divided than income • 1/3 of wealth belongs to the top 1% • 1/3 to the next 9% • 1/3 to the other 90% • Globalization and deindustrialization (2.7 million factory jobs lost from 2000-2003) Sociology 1201

  8. Inequality II • Do we need this very high level of inequality to motivate the most able people to train for and conscientiously fill the most important positions? (functionalism) • Or is it that wealthy Americans have so much power that they can just keep adding more privilege for themselves and their children? (conflict theory) Sociology 1201

  9. Social class & parenting Annette Lareau: Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life Qualitative research: interviews plus 60 hours of observation with 12 families, upper middle class and working class, black and white Concerted cultivation vs. natural development Sociology 1201

  10. Work vs. home • Context for the patterns Hochschild discovers at Amerco • Family values, but not really • Increased hours of work per week not only at Amerco but through much of the economy. Why? • Why does home seem like work and work like home, for many of these workers? Sociology 1201

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