The traditional differentiation into three classes no longer reflects the real situation in British society, the researchers concluded. The most obvious division for analysts seems to be into seven categories - from the elite to the precariat. And the number of classes will only increase in the future in global communities, experts are sure.

British society is now divided not into three, but into seven social classes. These are the results of a study commissioned by the BBC. The previous division of the British people into the working, middle and upper classes, according to experts, no longer reflects the real picture.

BBC researchers, who surveyed 160 thousand people, proposed defining classes according to economic, social and cultural parameters. This took into account the savings of the British, their availability of real estate, ways of spending time and their social circle. The new model includes seven of their varieties.

The most privileged class has become the “elite” - its representatives stand out for the greatest wealth and high performance in all categories. Then comes the largest group of Britons - the so-called stable middle class. Behind them are the “techies” - a small group of people with high incomes but low social and cultural capital. The fourth class is wealthy wage earners, the fifth is the traditional working class. The sixth is service sector workers - a new, young group consisting mainly of urban residents, relatively poor, but socially and culturally active. And finally, the last one is the precariat or unstable proletariat - the poorest and most vulnerable class among all of them. Researchers included 15% of UK residents in this category.

The situation is similar in Russia, notes Vladimir Rimsky, head of the sociology department of the Indem Foundation. There is still an upper and lower strata, he said, but the middle class has split into many subcategories.

“The fact that classes are determined mainly by economic criteria, perhaps in the 19th century this was more or less correct; material and economic factors were more significant. But now cultural factors are really very important, development or education, involvement in certain cultural and social processes. These are very important factors that determine the status of not only individuals, but also entire social groups,” he says.

Such studies are extremely important, but they have not been carried out in Russia in recent years, noted Alexander Shatilov, dean of the Faculty of Sociology and Political Science at the Financial University.

“Of course, certain categories of the population have indeed been considered both in our science and in foreign ones, but, it seems to me, this has yet to be developed. This is extremely important even from the point of view of determining the social priorities of the country’s development, because, if we proceed from the three-tier system, then you can often make mistakes when choosing social strategies. And with further development, including, I hope, innovative development, both of the Russian Federation and the whole world, the number of these social categories will only increase,” he says.

According to researchers, the majority of Britons, 25%, belong to the so-called stable middle class.

Anastasia Roizman

The British were divided into seven classes