ABSTRACT
The two problems that drew Murray’s attention-increased black lone motherhood, and the withdrawal of black youth from the labour market-have been at the centre of an explosion of American literature concerned with definitions and explanations of the emerging ‘underclass’. The term itself suggests a group which is in some sense outside of mainstream society, but there is disagreement about the nature and source of their exclusion. One position (e.g. Murray) argues that welfare dependency has encouraged the break-up of the nuclear family household and socialisation into a counter-culture which devalues work and encourages dependency and/or criminality. The other position emphasises the failure of the economy to provide sufficient secure employment to meet demand, and the consequent destabilisation of the male breadwinner role. The former sees the source of exclusion as lying in the attitudes and behaviour of the underclass; the latter sees it as lying in the structured inequality which disadvantages particular groups in society. The precise nature of this structural disadvantage is itself hotly debated.
