LSE’s new study shows how our fetishisation of meritocracy makes privileged people frame their lives as an uphill struggle
Coronavirus has brutally reinforced that it pays to be privileged. Yet despite the advantages enjoyed by those from middle-class backgrounds, it is precisely these individuals who believe most strongly that meritocracy is working; that “hard work” is the key to success.
One explanation for this is that many simply do not see themselves as privileged. Britain certainly has an unusual attachment to working-class identities. While in most western countries people tend to identify as middle class, Britain has long been an intriguing outlier. According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, 47% of Britons in middle-class professional and managerial jobs identify as working class. Even more curiously, a quarter of people in such jobs who come from middle-class backgrounds – in the sense that their parents did professional work – also identify as working class.
