Social Polarization: A Comparison of Evidence from Britain and the United States

In this paper, evidence from Britain and the United States concerning social polarization is compared. Two major approaches to the subject are identified: the first, most extensively developed in the United States, is focused upon occupational shifts and their impact upon the earnings paid to individuals; and the second, which has emerged in Britain, is focused upon households and all the types of work undertaken within them. These approaches and their differing implications for polarization—the first approach suggesting a ‘disappearing middle’ and the second approach a growing ‘underclass’—are related to differing social and economic circumstances in Britain and the United States. Both approaches are applied to a household survey of the economically active in Southampton. The survey indicates that social polarization is a result both of sectoral shifts in the local economy and of changing household structures. A number of contrasts between labour-market influences upon polarization in the United States and Britain are highlighted.