Case Study: United Kingdom

1. Compare and contrast the equality of life of the working class and the middle class between 1945 and 2000.
The working class consists of skilled and unskilled labor, which in theory would increase skilled labor and unskilled labor for the working class as time progresses. Due to advancement in technologies and also education. Though in the 60s there was a education boom where more people where going to college that belonged to the middle class, however beginning in the 1970s education became even greater due to more money being put into social reforms in the UK. Education became more democratic though in 1973, 20% of British 18 years old received education compared to 75% in America. This left a huge class diverges in Britain at the time with a rich, middle, and lower class. A huge diverge between the social classes would be due to Even with the reforms that Wilson put forth, education was still a problem. According to historians Clayton Roberts and David Roberts authors of “A History of England: 1688 to the Present” (1980), only 25% of the 16 year olds went to school and only 15% of them received any form of higher education. The equality for life between the working and the middle class had a bigger diverge in the late 70s because of unemployment which caused the younger people to loose jobs while older people felt more stability.

2. Compare and contrast avenues for social mobility in 1945 and 2000.
Chances of switching social classes in 1945 seemed more likely due to everyone in the UK becoming affected by the war so that everyone could easily move down or even the elimination of the social classes. However they were restored with the aid of the Marshall plan and economic aid from the West after World War II. It seemed that social mobility was more likely in 2000 because of economic booms and education reforms from Parliament which helped give people the chance to rise up from what class they were in or, even increase in growth rates would yield increase in social mobility because children born when education is improved have a better chance from moving up from the working class, which they're family are in into, middle class. Also with time passing 2000 is more great for social mobility because people are abandoning the older cultural traditions and values in the UK and becoming more liberal therefore being born into the upper class goes away while working your way into the upper class is more likely.

Income Inequality

To what extent to you believe income inequality is one of the three biggest problems facing Europe in the era we are studying?
I agree that income inequality is one of the biggest problems in the Europe that we are studying, because it appears since the rich control the money in a government, there is more likely to have a diverge in the social classes. This diverge will lead to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. According to the Economist, the people who wrote on Wall Street are getting richer, and during the economic recession that came about it saw more people getting poorer and poorer. This is also evident to be a problem in Europe during the late 60s into the 80s, because with every step to fix the economic problems, income inequality still plagued Europe. Though to show a counter claim, in Franco's regime, income inequality to a extent lessened when most peoples income increased exponentially. While in the rest of Europe, The CAP was put into place to help with the economy but it seemed to not help the idea of income inequality at all because of corruption from the people that control the money. This is seen in the Economist in the news today and can evidently be seen in Europe many years back, that due to people controlling the money it leads to corruption which will lead to income inequality which is one of the biggest problems.