ABSTRACT
Fiona Devine makes the point more formally, about one aspect of the intergenerational effects of money. It might be expected, therefore, that the shift to a less egalitarian distribution of money since 1979 would be at the centre of political conflict. Although money has always been essential in understanding social inequality, how it creates and preserves them has shifted since the second half of the 20th century. Women who married “below” their own social class were less likely than men who did so to pass on their original status to their children. Although an element of the status system earlier, for many they were much less important then, yet their value not only survived but became greatly enhanced. Educational credentials had been one, minor, aspect of Britain’s earlier status hierarchy, but their reputation survived and was greatly enhanced intact, as that hierarchy was transforming.
