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Unit 14: Emergence of Middle Class System

exposure to the global network. Many of the working women, who manage their own expenses, Notes
do contribute towards the economic needs of their family as and when required. Unlike the earlier
time they often participate in discussions at workplace where their views are also given equal
importance before any final decision.

What do you mean by ‘old middle classes’?

After globalisation, women are bagging more and more job opportunities. It has raised hopes of
women for a secured and elevated status of women arising out of increased chances to work but,
at the same time, it has placed them in a highly contradictory economic liberty. But women
continued to be denied economic, social and legal rights and privileges.
Women plow fields and harvest crops while working on farms, women weave and make handicrafts
while working in the household industries, they sell food and gather wood while working in the
informal sector making money for them and their family.
The basic infrastructure of society has hardly improved, though the role of women within the
same structure is passing through a transitional phase. It is but natural that she would remain
vulnerable to exploitation even in her economically independent status.
In the case of women, besides other social institutions, patriarchy plays on over determining role
in socially situating the status of women in the larger social landscape.

India is the first among countries to give women equal franchise and has a high
credible record with regards to the enactment of laws to protect and promote the
interest of women.

Middle Classes in the Western Countries
As a result of industrial developments in the western Europe the new class of merchants and
industrialists started developing. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the term
middle class was first used to describe these emerging class of bourgeoisie. It stood in-between the
rich land owning class and poor working class. With expansion of industries and urban areas,
trade and service economy grew. People engaged in these works like small traders and professionals
constituted the middle class whom we called ‘old middle classes’.
G.D.H. Cole, a famous sociologist attributed the rise of middle class to two important economic
developments in the western economy. First, spread of education and Second one is spread of
joint stock companies. Another sociologist D. Lockwood attributed the rise of the white-collar
salaried class to the developments of corporate capitalism and the emergence of big organisation
the ‘new middle class’ further enlarged with expansion of tertiary/service sector. So here Marx’s
vision of disappearance of middle class does not stand true because though old middle class seem
to have declined in strength, the size of new middle class’ has been expanding continuously.
Self-Assessment

Choose the correct options
1. The term middle class was first widely used in
(a) 18th Century (b) 17th Century (c) 19th Century (d) None of these

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