Measuring Social Class

Class Systems  Class is the stratification system common to most modern industrial societies.  People can be grouped in terms of their occupation, income and wealth.  People located within recognizable social classes almost always also share similar levels of education, status and power.

How are Class Systems Different? Class systems differ from other stratification systems such as caste or feudalism in the following ways: 1. Based on economic factors not religion, law or race 2. Tend to be open not closed 3. Borders between classes are fuzzy when compared to caste or feudal estate 4. Class systems aspire to be meritocratic with opportunities for social mobility 5. People in industrial societies have equal rights despite class differences 6. There are no legal barriers to cross class marriage

Measuring Social Class  Politicians, social scientists and advertisers all have an interest in operationalising the concept of social class (defining in a way that can be measured).  Politicians may wish to implement policy which addresses inequality  Social scientists may wish to evaluate the causes and impact of inequality  Advertisers may wish to target their marketing to particular social groups

Class and Occupation  Most people work therefore the single most measurable factor linked to social class is occupation.  There are a number of ‘scales’ on social class based on occupation including the Registrar General, The Hope Goldthorpe Scale and the NS-SEC.  One weakness of all occupation based definitions of class is that they ignore people who don’t work!