Does Class System Still Exist Essay

In this essay there will be a couple of paragraphs answering the question of does the class system still exist in contemporary society. In the first paragraph there will be key terms which will be defined, the main ones being class and social stratification.

Social stratification is when people (society) are split up into different hierarchical social groups. These groups are not so called ‘given’ but they are created socially. Reflecting on the inequalities in life chances for example a person’s age, gender and the class. In essence social class is a status group, the term class is connected to status. As people are involved in all sorts of activities, follow different vocations and do different things, these all effect all the different statuses which arise in a society. Social class is mainly reliant on the economical differences between the groups. Depending on which social class a person is, it would dramatically effects the life chances for example wealth, education, health and employment. It affects the lifestyle and patterns of consumption, also has a big influence on the person’s attitude and values. The

This basically means if a person loses his or her job this will mean they would in fact go down a class from where they were before however on the other hand if the person gets a promotion therefore they would go up in the class level. This is also known to be called an “open” system. In the UK it is pretty hard for someone to move classes from the middle class to the upper class. It is especially harder for women to get a promotion even in this day. Statistics show that Women occupy on average 30.9% of ‘top jobs’ across 11 sectors. Therefore for families where the woman only works it is very unlikely for them to go up in the class system, as there is a low chance they will get promoted or get accepted in a ‘top