Falling from Grace: Downward Mobility in the Age of Affluence

by Katherine S. Newman

Over the last three decades, millions of people have slipped through a loophole in the American dream and become downwardly mobile as a result of downsizing, plant closings, mergers, and the middle-aged computer executive laid off during an industry crisis, blue-collar workers phased out of the post-industrial economy, middle managers whose positions have been phased out, and once-affluent housewives stranded with children and a huge mortgage as the result of divorce. Anthropologist Katherine S. Newman interviewed a wide range of men, women, and children who experienced a precipitous fall from middle-class status, and her book documents their stories. For the 1999 edition, Newman has provided a new preface and updated the extensive data on job loss and downward mobility in the American middle class, documenting its persistence, even in times of prosperity.

Genres: Nonfiction, Anthropology

344 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1988

About the author

Katherine Newman is Professor of Sociology and James Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Author of several books on middle class economic instability, urban poverty, and the sociology of inequality, she previously taught at the University of California (Berkeley), Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton.

Reviews

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

We read a chapter of this book in my qualitative methods class as an example of one way to write up data in a readable way that weaves in theory without pontificating on it.

I liked the chapter on downwardly mobile managers the best, if only because the others were, well, fairly predictable. The overall thrust of the argument deals with how individualistic American culture contexualizes the experience of losing it all.

While I too have been a frustrated job seeker before and can only imagine the kind of mental strife it produces when a whole family is involved, the book started to depress me in its depiction of how materialistic and status conscious Americans are. The book is generally takes the pain experienced by formerly middle-class families who have experienced major job dislocation at face value and doesn't judge their priorities, which I guess is a fair way of handling it, but at times, it's hard to get too amped up about people losing the country club membership and having to make do with old furniture. It's a really sad commentary that so much of many people's psychological well-being has to do with being able to buy the latest brands. Not that this is surprising of course, although I guess it's kind of outside my own experience.

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting case studies and trend analysis of people in middle to upper class jobs that, for various reasons, lost their jobs and were pushed down into a lower class - i.e. the "downwardly mobile." Newman is an anthropologist by training, and I appreciated the cultural lens as well as the different communal analyses - not just analyzing the person who lost their job, but also how their job loss affected their relationships with others and the way others perceived them, whether that was their children, partner, parents, or friends.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read the original from the 1980s, so I glossed over outdated stats/data but am still amazed at how the situations then mirror those now, more than 20 years later. Everything from age discrimination to the boomerang generation were just as they exist now. Scary.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many problems without any solutions...but I'm kinda a cynic :)

[Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

(acquired from a dorm-mate during end of semester move-out aka saved it from the trash)

Feels longer than it is, could probably get more out of it by reading a few chapters with great attention.

[Temu]

how mah friend graces has passed away