Understanding social inequalities Social inequality in relation to social class

Ordered into unequal layers or strata of wealth, status, power and privilege according to socially recognised differences so most wealthy, powerful and privileged at the top and poorest at the bottom

This is known as social stratification

Opportunity for members of the working class to experience upward social mobility is hindered by factors such as low income, lack of access to wealth, poverty and experience in education

What is Social Class?

Term used by sociologists found in modern industrial societies

Most sociologists do not agree on what we mean by social class or on how people should be classified

Generally agreed that members of a social class share a similar economic position

Similar occupation and levels of education

Economic inequalities of status and power

Link social class to differences in attitudes and culture such as working class and middle-class people have different attitudes to the importance of education and different tastes in leisure activities and consumer goods

Ruling Class and the Subject Class

19th century Karl Marx argued capitalist societies were divided into two social class:

  • Ruling class – who owned the means of production
  • Subject class – they were employed by the ruling class to produce the goods

Manual and Non-Manual Workers

While Marxists has influenced some sociologists, modern sociologists would argue that the class system is more complex

Some argue that middle class exists

Middle class were traditionally seen as non-manual workers who depended on educational qualifications and mental skills so they can earn high incomes than working class

Hope-Goldthorpe Classification

Sociologists argue there are divisions even within these broader social class

John Goldthorpe (1980) developed the Hope-Goldthorpe scale in order to undertake research into social mobility

He distinguished 3 main classes:

  1. Service class
  • High professions
  • Lower professionals
  1. Intermediate class
  • Routine non-manual
  • Small proprietors
  • Lower grade techniques
  1. Working class
  • Skilled manual workers
  • Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers

Underclass

Some writers such as Charles Murray (1989) argued that a new social class which has emerged below the working class

Consists of the poorest members of society such as unemployed

Unlike working class, who have paid jobs these groups largely dependent on state benefits

Measuring and Operationalising Social Class

Various groups have invested interests in operationalising and measuring the concept of social class in a consensus way for a number of reasons

  • Sociologists want to address class differences in all areas of social life in order to identify reasons why inequalities come about
  • Advertisers want to target particular social groups in order maximise sales
  • Governments need to fortunate social policies in order to address inequalities and future trends

Each interests group has tended to operationalise the concept of social class in a different way

National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification

Used to clarify people by social class in official statistics such as the census and government surveys

Until 2000, the government used the register-generals classification of occupations to measure social class which involves that ranking of thousands of jobs into 6 groups

  • High professional
  • Lower professional
  • White collar clerical workers
  • Skilled
  • Semi-skilled
  • Unskilled blue-collar workers

Occupation and Social Class

Sociological approaches to class base heir classifications on occupations

It is useful guide to social class as many sociologists would see the class structure of modern industrial societies as based on the occupational structure etc…

A person’s occupation tells us, how much income, level of education, kind of housing, what lifestyle

All these factors link to social class according to sociologists

Occupational classes have limitations

Some people have no occupation but may be wealthy or else their occupation is a poor guide to their social position

Contain very diverse occupations

Class 1 includes both millionaire business people who would be classified as company directors and receive very modest salaries

Good indicator of social identity such as people in particular manual jobs may profess pride in being working class while people in professional and managerial jobs may share similar middle-class outlook

This approach to social class still leaves out those who do not work such as extremely rich who may live off inherited wealth, rents and stock dividends and long term unemployed

Objectives measures using occupation have enabled social class to be measured statistically as getting measures right has proved to be a problem

Various occupational scales that have been constructed have all been criticised for failing to present a true picture of the class structure

Subjective Social Class

Occupational classifications are objective definitions of class

Based on commonly agreed criteria for classifying people

These do not always coincide with subjective definitions of class

These are based on the social class to which people see themselves as belonging

Gordan Marshell et al (1988) found many people saw themselves as working class even though they were in non-manual work or white-collar jobs = middle class

Mike Savage (2001) they found a significant proportion of their respondents were reluctant to identify themselves with a social class and in general the notion of social class identity was relatively muted