Class: Gregson and Lowe’s Servicing the Middle Classes

Abstract

One of the major changes in the British class structure over the twentieth century has been the expansion of the middle classes as a result of the growth of professional, managerial and high-level administrative occupations (Butler and Savage 1995; Savage et al. 1992). The number of people employed in these jobs increased from approximately 12 per cent of the labour force in 1951 to about 27 per cent by 1985 (Marshall et al. 1988; Routh 1987). Previously, these well-remunerated, high-status and often powerful positions were the preserve of men. There has, however, been an increase in the number of women entering middle-class occupations, although they have gained access to only some (often caring) professions (Crompton and Sanderson 1990; Devine 1992a) and remain a minority in (top) managerial jobs (Savage 1992; Wajcman 1996). More often than not, these women have been married to middle-class men and together these couples constitute work-rich dual career families (Bonney 1988a, b; Pahl 1984, 1988). These households, Gregson and Lowe argue, face ‘a crisis in social reproduction’. Their response is to employ waged domestic labour: namely, women in lower middle-class and working-class positions — sometimes from ‘work-poor’ families where neither partner is in formal employment — who undertake routine domestic and childcare tasks on their behalf.