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What always strikes me is that in the UK (well England more than NI) what is called "middle class" is not 25-75% income percentile...it is more top 25% and sometimes top 10%.
Isn't middle class in GB the bigger percentage? To my mind lower-middle to upper-middle encompasses a pretty broad range of professional, specialist and retail services. But I guess it all depends on how you define it. Big house, small house, flat, owning, renting - I don't think any of those conditions excludes middle class. On the other hand if being working class means not having assets, then maybe you can't be middle class and not own property.
We have to redefine things though - eg education qualifications like A-levels and degrees used to be a signifier of middle class, but if half the younger population has them, it doesn't give you significantly more security, so are they really useful signifiers anymore?
hoefla-
Isn't middle class in GB the bigger percentage?
=Yeah it could very well be, it even seems to include the super rich due to the history. I think that's not helpful.I agree the old definitions are not so accurate anymore to reflect wealth and income.
It used to be that culturally middleclass and income/wealth middleclass usually overlapped.
But now you can be a nurse, have to go to uni and still be underpaid.
In that sense culture/income have become detached for the old school middle class definition.
But then I read if you are working class you used to be able to become education/culturally middle class via the unions, and now when you work a trad working class job with matching income, but become educated some people no longer see you as working class.
So income wise you are still working class, but culturally you are not as Alf0nse said.
Just gets my goat that the 50-75% get talked about as if they are the top 25% and cause the same problems even though they don't have the same power or income.
Same thing, it's true they have it better than the 25-50% but there is a lot of (probably intentional) narrative to make it sound the 25-75 band is the cause of all the bottom 25 and 25-50 problems where it's the top 10% income that can take the journo/art jobs cos they can live of bank of mum and dad and have more power.
(it's a tricky thing for sure class...)
JWestland
What always strikes me is that in the UK (well England more than NI) what is called "middle class" is not 25-75% income percentile...it is more top 25% and sometimes top 10%.
In NL/France that is the burgeousie and if you would try to pretend to be Dutch middle class in NL coming from that background the reaction would be a clear "Hah, lol, no".
Big houses and all that and middle class? Pffffffffffffft.
I had an acquaintance in uni, who tried to get in a golf club. No joy. When he said his dad was the owner of a well known factory, suddenly he got an invite. So clearly, there are class bubbles there too, of course.
But he wasn't trying to pass himself as "I am so working class" if anything he pointed out how bull this was.
Sample size of 1 obv. And yeah we do have cultural class, but this cap doffing pretend not rich when loaded to the hilt is pretty alien to the Dutch. And I think Norn Irish too from speaking to my colleagues.