This final book in The Affluent Worker series contains the findings and conclusions on the extent of working class embourgeoisment.

Fiona Devine's important new book offers a qualitative re-evaluation of the Affluent Worker study conducted by John Goldthorpe and his colleagues in Luton nearly thirty years ago. Drawing on her intensive interviews with Vauxhall workers and their wives, Devine examines the motivations, processes and consequences of geographical mobility and explores working-class lifestyles and the extent to which they may be described as privatised or communal. Contrary to the predictions of the older study, Devine's findings suggest that working-class lifestyles are neither exclusively family-centred, nor entirely home-centred. No evidence of a singular instrumentalism appears; instead aspirations for material well being form a crucial component of a collective working-class identity, with criticism of the trade unions and the Labour Party being directed at their failure to change the distribution of resources in Britain.

In this 1968 volume the authors report on the voting and the political attitudes of a sample of highly-paid manual workers.

Politicians continually tell us that anyone can get ahead. But is that really true? This important, best-selling book takes readers behind the closed doors of elite employers to reveal how class affects who gets to the top. Friedman and Laurison show that a powerful 'class pay gap’ exists in Britain’s elite occupations. Even when those from working-class backgrounds make it into prestigious jobs, they earn, on average, 16% less than colleagues from privileged backgrounds. But why is this the case? Drawing on 175 interviews across four case studies – television, accountancy, architecture, and acting – they explore the complex barriers facing the upwardly mobile. This is a rich, ambitious book that demands we take seriously not just the glass but also the class ceiling.

Since the early 1980s, a vast number of jobs have been created in the affluent economies of the industrialized world. Many workers are doing more skilled and fulfilling jobs, and getting paid more for their trouble. Yet it is often alleged that the quality of work life has deteriorated, with a substantial and rising proportion of jobs providing low wages and little security, or requiring unusually hard and stressful effort. In this unique and authoritative formal account of changing job quality, economist Francis Green highlights contrasting trends, using quantitative indicators drawn from public opinion surveys and administrative data. In most affluent countries average pay levels have risen along with economic growth, a major exception being the United States. Skill requirements have increased, potentially meaning a more fulfilling time at work. Set against these beneficial trends, however, are increases in inequality, a strong intensification of work effort, diminished job satisfaction, and less employee influence over daily work tasks. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Demanding Work shows how aspects of job quality are related, and how changes in the quality of work life stem from technological change and transformations in the politico-economic environment. The book concludes by discussing what individuals, firms, unions, and governments can do to counter declining job quality.

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