Husbands' and Wives' Voting Behaviour in Britain: Class-dependent Mutual Influence of Spouses.

The article contrasts the conventional from the revised treatment of British women in class analysis. There has been growing controversy in recent years about the treatment of women in class analysis. In the past, the conventional practice was to treat the family as the unit of analysis and to classify its members according to the head of household's position. In addition to women's increased participation in the labor market, there are two further possibilities which might tend to increase the importance of women's own occupations. First, the growth of the women's movement or the greater risk of divorce might lead some women to place greater emphasis on their own career interests rather than on their husband's. Thus, there may be ideological and social changes in contemporary society which modify women's subjective interpretations of their long-run class interests. If, for any of these reasons, women's occupations are becoming more important (relative to spouse's occupation) in explaining their own behavior, then the conventional approach to class analysis will increasingly be called into question. Indeed, to stick with this approach, classifying women according to their husband's occupations, could reduce the explanatory force of class analysis and might lead to an apparent weakening of the relationship between class and the dependent variables of interest. For these reasons, a number of revisions have been suggested to the conventional approach to class analysis. One persuasive suggestion is that, while the family should be retained as the unit of analysis, its class position should be based on that of the higher-level partner, irrespective of whether that person is the husband or wife.