Third, in the former colonial countries of the West, immigrants from southern
parts of the globe filled the space opened up by a vanishing proletariat. As one of
the intertwining threads of the fabric of globalization, this process resulted in the
ethnification of social class. In the United States, slavery had laid the
groundwork of a social hierarchy in which race was a central dimension of
inequality and where race is still a strong predictor of per capita income—today:
White, Asian, Black, Hispanic, in that order. Similar patterns appeared in
Western European countries in the wake of decolonization. Nowadays, an ethnic
underclass is a common feature in many cities. This is a society where housing
rent varies with the tenants’ ethnicity, and where your station in life may be a
stop on a commuter train; for instance Aulnay-sous-Bois on the Île-de-France
Line 4 in Paris, or Thamesmead Town Centre, a stop on the 244 bus line in
London, where chances are you will see mostly black people get on and off. In
Paris, London, or Brussels, skin colour, place of residence, infant mortality, and
per capita income nowadays show significant correlations formerly associated
with social class and are hence indicative of new social divisions and identities.
Fourth, level of education (literacy) has always been an important variable of
social stratification. With the advent of the digital age and the knowledge
society, it became more important than ever, opening up new opportunities of
participation in economic life across social classes. Certified skills are still
valuable in the marketplace, but at the same time, new ways of making money
not dependent on any formal education have emerged in cyberspace.
‘Disruptors’, who interfere with or destroy normal processes to try out and
benefit from some innovation that may or may not be useful, are celebrated as
heroes, while educators promote the idea of lifelong learning for many
professions. This is a society with reduced continuity and stability, where
changing jobs in the course of one’s professional life is common and attachments
are contingent. Mobile recruiting apps are representative of current trends.
People scan job offers, upload their CV and supporting documents, and add a
little video clip to flaunt their identity, all while being on the move. They expect
to receive an answer on their mobile device and are ready to start work
tomorrow or next week, for a week, a month, a year, but hardly for life.
As no one explained more lucidly than Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt
Bauman, these developments among some others have as their consequences
more fragmentation of social attachments and a growing sense of insecurity. Ties
that used to be considered solid are no longer reliable, in the labour market, in