Structural Transformations in the British Class Structure: A Log Linear Analysis of Marital Endogamy in Rochdale 1856-1964

Abstract

This paper analyses data on marital endogamy by means of log-linear modelling in an attempt to specify changes in the British class structure between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. The evidence on intermarriage was collected in Rochdale and involves five decennial periods over the hundred year span. A seven class model was used to categorize the data and a succession of log-linear models fitted. The hypotheses examined were taken from the sociological literature. Almost all postulated certain forms of structural transformation in class structures like Britain during this hundred year period. However, the model fitted did not require the inclusion of a term which incorporated changes in class structuration over time and these hypotheses were rejected. Nevertheless, the fitted model did indicate the persistence of a class structure over the period. Examination of the odds ratios and scaled residuals associated with the model fitting suggested that the main lines of class cleavage occurred between the bourgeoisie and the unskilled manual working class and the remainder of the class categories. Conventional dichotomies associated with notions of a middle class/working class axis of class cleavage or a nonmanual/manual axis were not relevant to an explanation of the data presented and this was presented as a problem requiring further research.