An Analysis of the Fundamentals of Marketing (part 19)

Family Identity and Social Class

by

Charles Lamson

Family Identity

Outside our own skins, the family is where we are likely to feel (at least initially) most at home.

In Western Europe, the nuclear family, two adults living together in the same household with one or more children, is considered to be the norm. The nuclear family is itself of comparatively recent origin in Europe, where there are still strong pockets of an earlier form of family organization, the extended family (three generations living under one roof). The nuclear family emerged largely as a response to the eighteenth-century division of labor which occurred in Europe at the time of the industrial revolution. The development of the factory as a new form of work unit led to more men becoming separated from the household as 'breadwinners'. During this period greater pressure was brought to bear on women to become 'providers' as being responsible for cooking, housework and other domestic jobs, which were seen as an inferior occupation, if  they were thought of as being work at all. The woman as provider for the needs of the household was also associated with gathering its provisions. She became the centerpiece of the 'cornflake packet (a UK term)' family that emerged as the focus of advertising for a vast range of 'domestic' products and services.

Yet, the dominance of the stereotypical nuclear family is a myth, or at least it is in the UK. In 1971 nuclear families accounted for 35 percent of all households; by 1978 they constituted 32 percent, and in 1996, 23 percent of all households were nuclear families. By contrast, 62 percent of the population lived alone or were living together without dependent children, reflecting the gradual ageing of the population. Another trend has been toward lone parent families; for example, of the 36 percent of households with children, 10 percent were made up of lone parents in 1996. The dynamic shift away from the cornflake packet family has been paralleled by a growing complexity in family relationships. For example, in 1996, 8 percent of families included more than one stepchild. 

There has been much change within nuclear families which reflects changing patterns of work and leisure. Put simply, more women go to work, fewer men have stable full-time employment and the home itself has become more like a nest of cells than one single unit. The Henley Centre discusses this latter point as a shift towards cellular living. This reflects the growing individualization of life in family homes and a corresponding decrease in collective ritual activities like joint family meals or entertainment. Microwaves and a thriving take-out food industry allow members of the family to have it their way; many children own their own personal stereos, television sets, laptop and/or desktop computers, and smartphones.

This means that, generally, the trends indicate that the cornflake packet family, while constituting a relatively large group within society, is continuing to fragment and decline. This has many implications for consumer behavior. For example, food companies and those producing hygiene products offer less 'family' style products and more products that cater to the individual. 

Social Class

For many years the social class of a person has been seen to be an important determinant of their purchase behavior, e.g. a social classification section is almost always to be found in any questionnaire survey. While social class is a complex phenomenon researchers have operationalized this, i.e. rendered it capable of measurement, e.g. in terms of the occupation of the head of household. In the UK this means that the researcher will ask who the head of the household is. This used to be the 'man of the house'. However, nowadays it is based on the person who earns the most and so may be a man or a woman. The occupation of this person is then noted and forms the basis of the social classification.

Social class varies in importance. In the UK it used to be a powerful explanatory factor in purchase behavior. It is suggested that social class dictated not only the work environment, but what stores a person patronized for shopping as well as attitudes toward education, leisure and holidays. It is not possible to discuss all the fine distinctions between classes. For example, the middle classes were supposed to be knowledgeable about and were expected to drink wine (but not beer because that was 'working-class'); certainly middle-class women were not expected to be seen in public houses (pubs) because that is where working-class men went to drink. On the other hand, working-class people did not go on holidays abroad and could be accused as traitors to their class if they went to university. As a result, in a major way who you were, i.e. what class you belonged to, determined what you could do. Social class position dictated a whole range of 'appropriate' behaviors which were summed up in the expression 'People like us don't . . . drink beer, go to Blackpool for our holidays, wear flat caps, train to be lawyers, or read the Times newspaper.' However, owing to the influence of the mass media, particularly 'fly on the wall' documentaries and soap operas, people have shown how the 'other half' live, e.g. most of the world has access to the inner workings of the British royal household. Television programs 'educate' middle-class women about appropriate forms of behavior in 'working-class' preserves such as public houses; working-class men can learn to be wine snobs through the same channel. In a nutshell, the suggestion is that social class no longer provides the pillar for identity that it used to do. The views expressed above have been influenced by the work of Bob Tyrell while he was associated with the UK think tank, the Henley Centre.

If this is right, the implications are enormous. People who feel strongly bound by class in terms of what they could and could not do are faced with an unprecedented freedom. But how powerful is social class in contemporary Britain? One question in the British Panel Household Survey 1996 asks 'Do you think of yourself as belonging to any particular social class?' In answer to this question, only 38 percent of respondents said 'yes'. However, when asked if they had to choose, 44 percent said that they would be working-class, and just under 40 percent indicated that they would be middle-class. Asked the question 'In Britain today, how much do you think a person's opportunities are affected by the class into which they are born?', 28 percent said 'a great deal', 40 percent 'quite a lot', 23 percent 'not very much' and just over 6 percent 'not at all'. Methods of assessing social class will be discussed in later posts, especially the development of ACORN.

*SOURCE: FUNDAMENTALS OF MARKETING, 2007, MARILYN A. STONE AND  JOHN DRESMOND, PGS. 84-85*

END