Here are some additional characteristics of the women in this group:
1) Although the necessity of working has expanded the social horizons of many working class women the traditional female jobs which most of them hold are not intrinsically rewarding.
2) These expanded horizons are reflected in the decreasing propensity of working class women to define family responsibilities, especially child acre, as the central focus of their lives.
3) Wives employment is often viewed as threatening by the working class husband, whose ability to provide for the family is often the major source of his sense of self worth.
4) Working class husbands and wives tend to adhere to traditional household roles and to engage in sex segregated leisure activities even if wives work.
5) While feelings of lack of self worth and competency in dealing with the world outside the home have decreased among working calls women, they have he same feelings among middle class women. The result is an increasing disparity in feelings of self worth and self confidence between the two social class groupings.
6) Working class women are more likely that their middle class counterparts feel that their adult life is better than their childhood was. Since part of the perceived is due to acquisition of desired material goods. Working class women are more positive towards business in general and specific products, and towards the media in general and advertising in particular than are middle class women.
This group’s emphasis on family ties is one sign of their limited social, psychological, and geographical horizons when compared to the middle class. Their parochial view extends to other areas however. They tend to live within a mile of a relative, follow local sports heroes, watch local TV news rather than national or world news vacation at home or within two hours distance and buy large domestic cars, not small foreign ones.
Although this group has become much more affluent over the last thirty years, there has been essentially no value change. This group’s basic characteristics – limited horizons, focus on family and sharp family sex role divisions have been relatively unchanged. They have sought change through using modern possessions, not through human relationships or new ideas.
This class together with the middle class enjoys canasta, rummy, poker, TV, movies and bowling. The men belong to unions, lodges and fraternal orders.
There are numerous contrasting psychological orientations between middle class ad lower status (working class) consumers.
This group contains 16 percent of the population and is generally referred to as disadvantaged and outside the mainstream. It is composed of mostly unskilled workers, unassimilated ethnics, and those who are sporadically employed. They may be subdivided into two groups; those who are working and those whoa are on welfare. The two segments total less than one fifth of to adult population and account for less than one tenth of the disposable income.
Upper Lower Class: This class is the working poor who have not escaped the marginal sector of the labor market. Although above the poverty level, they cannot count on steady employment. Because they may have only some high school education, they are relegated to, low paying unskilled labor positions. Unable to advance to the working class because of their low education level, they fear slipping to the lowest class.
This class consists of 7 percent of the population. Living below the poverty line, they receive most of their income from illegal activities or from welfare. This group is categorized as the American underclass whose environment is often a junk heap of rotting housing, broken furniture, crummy food, alcohol and drugs. They are fatalistic in their outlook, and their behavior generally, and as consumers is toward getting their kicks wherever they can. Unfortunately, they have bad reputation among higher classes who view them as lazy, shiftless, against work, and immoral. —