Are you top of the class?

DH and I worked in occupations that barely existed when we graduated, let alone when we left school. DH, officially retired, is currently working in an industry that barely existed 10 years ago. DD's experience has been similar. She has had several jobs that didn't exist when she graduated.

But what difference does knowing your class make to you? DH and I come from divergent backgrounds but at no point in our lives has our social background affected our professional or social lives. No one has ever enquired about it before giving us a job, selling us a house or socialising with us.

DH's progress in life has been led by his affable friendly nature and obvious competence in his work. Mine has been hampered because I although I am (I think) friendly and pleasant, I am more of a loner and do not trouble with people with whom I have little in common (most of them with social backgrounds that match mine).

I am technical middle class.
Monica I agree with your observation about people staunchly maintaining they are one class when it is obvious to everyone but themselves they are something else.
But I think what is also interesting are the new definitions of class, and how the different classes evolve and decline, and how the different age groups have different values and beliefs.
I heard someone say at a lecture a few years ago, that in ten years time, 80% it the working population would be in jobs that hadn't even been invented at the time he was speaking.
An exaggeration maybe, but when you think of the sort of jobs that were available to us when we were young, compared to what young people do now, I think it's an indication of how much and how rapidly the world changes.
Documenting these changes in terms of how people perceive themselves and others does have value I think.

Should have said that was from Class calculator: Can I have no job or money and still be middle class?

Ok I repeated it cutting out just one thing which was watching sport which DG did but not any more and I am now Traditional Working class. Who would have "thunk"it?

The site might be suffering overload. When I click to start the quiz nothing happens.

I think that is the key to class these days, Petallus. Our concept of our class is linked to our origins, but nowadays there is much more mobility between classes than there used to be (and apparently far more than there is now in the US, which has always looked on itself as being less class conscious than the UK)

"Despite the myriad of subtle nuances, class has historically been defined by occupation as much as anything else. A builder was working-class, a teacher middle-class and the upper class waited for their inheritance.

But a key part of the two-year survey has been exploring class in broader terms, with researchers incorporating "social capital" and "cultural capital".

The concepts were developed by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The idea is that social networks or cultural activities - whom people know and what they do - contribute to their class and prospects at least as much as income.

"Class used to be about how much you earned, how you earned your money on a Monday to Friday. Now it's about how you spend your money at the weekend," says Harry Wallop, author of Consumed: How Shopping Fed the Class System.

Origins are just that though Petallus. My Very Traditional Working Class grandfather (a miner from a family of miners) would be very proud to know what his granddaughter has achieved as he encouraged his family of 6 girls to get a good education and get a career, and every one did just that.

I do not know and do not care what class I am meant to be, nor do I have any interest in other people's supposed 'class'.

What I do find fascinating is people who perceive themselves as one class but have when official definitons are applied are another, usually a class they affect to despise. Politicians and business men with multiple expensive cars, huge houses, expensive lifestyles involving luxury hotels and restaurants and children in private schools, who insist that they are still solidly working class.

Why in this modern day and age anybody should be interested in what class they are, defeats me

I'm not doing it.

I visit galleries, go to the theatre etc. and our income is above average. However, I'm not giving up my working class origins for anybody!

Established middle class but more than 30 years older than the average age.

Apparently I'm established middle class,whatever that means.As far as I'm concerned I'm definitely working class.

I'm a new affluent worker, apparently. Rather than being old, poor and retired.

Apparently I am traditional working class. It says those in this class tend to be older!

'Established middle class '
I've never viewed myself as middle class in my life!

Technical middle class for me too!

Ooh! Technical middle class for me! I think on the basis of using social media. However I do live in the suburban South East too which fits the stereotype perfectly.

I am traditional working class, I redid it with all the same answers except I made myself moderately richer and became established middle class!
But I don't think class matters anymore unless you are in the top public school bracket. My father was an unskilled worker and my mother taught piano lessons. I am an office worker (part qualified accountant) but my life style choices (divorce, single parent, working abroad for a charity) have left me with a small (but adequate) income. Je regret rien.