American sociologists Harold Wilensky and Hugh Edwards examined the response of ‘skidders’- persons moving down into the working class-to the experience of social demotion. They found that the downwardly mobile tend to be more politically conservative than those born into and remaining within the working class.
The experience of downward mobility did not lead them to reject the social order and so threaten the stability of society. Instead they clung to middle-class values, anticipating upward mobility and a restoration of their former status. Their presence in the working class tends to weaken that class since they are not really a part of it.