Defining and Measuring Social Class

The meaning of social class

Most sociologists agree that society is stratified, to some extent, into social classes.

Fig. 1 - Social class is, broadly, defined and measured in terms of economic resources and opportunities.

A general definition of social class

It is difficult to give a single, all-encompassing definition for 'social class', as what it means and how it's measured has been widely contested over the years. In general terms, social classes are said to be the particular divisions that society is separated into, based on socioeconomic status.

Broadly, sociologists suggest that three interrelated dimensions interact with social class:

• Economic capital is related to factors like occupation, income, and wealth.

• Political capital is related to factors like status and levels of power.

• Cultural capital is related to factors like norms, values, beliefs, and lifestyle.

The importance of defining social class

Social class is an important concept in sociology, because it gives us operationalised insights into people's life chances; therefore, it helps us understand the distribution of resources that creates inequality.

Barratt (2005) argues that what constitutes social class is more than just wealth and income. While wealth gives people better access to academic and cultural capital, there's more to being 'upper class' than just having money. This leads us to wonder how social class is measured.

Examples of social class measures

In this section, we'll be going through the various approaches that have been established to define and measure social class both within and outside sociology.

Marxist measures of social class

Marxism is a traditional sociological perspective that you're probably well aware of. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848) identified the 'two great classes', separated by economic and political factors.

After the turn of the 19th century, class divisions continued to reflect marked differences in ownership and market position. This gave theorists a good reason to continue using traditional definitions of social class.

Neo-Marxist measures of social class

Erik Wright and Luca Perrone (1997) used a neo-Marxist ideology to develop a more detailed scale of social class.

Their scale drew on social relationships to the means of production. People were placed on the scale based on where in the production process they were positioned: whether they purchased, controlled, or sold labour.

Wright and Perrone (1977)

However, Wright and Perrone (1997) felt that traditional Marxism failed to consider potential ambiguities or overlaps in class structure, so they added to the scale by identifying 'contradictory class locations'.

Wright (1976)

The reason that these classes are considered contradictory is that their relationships to the means of production are not as polarised as the traditional classes.

This goes to show that classes aren't as polarised as was believed by traditional Marxists, giving the neo-Marxist stratification method a significant analytical advantage.

The Runciman scale

Towards the end of the 19th century, Garry Runciman created another social class measurement scale. The Runciman scale is based on the idea of economic power, which has three dimensions:

1. Ownership over the means of production.

2. Control over the production process.

3. Marketability, in the sense of being skilled and qualified to work.

There are seven distinct social classes on the Runciman scale. He notes that his structure is not static - it is subject to change through individual and collective social mobility.

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of the population started to rely on paid employment as a means of survival. So, an individual's occupation became the most accurate way of predicting someone's standard of living and life chances.

Because of this, the use of scales measuring occupational groupings became widespread among official statisticians and governments.

Government scales for measuring social class

Most governments use occupation as a way to quantify social class in their countries. They use scales to survey the population and gauge the general distribution of social classes.

Registrar General’s social class scale

The Registrar General's scale (RGSC) was used by the UK government between 1911 and 1980. The RGSC divided the population into five distinct social classes, with class 3 divided into two subclasses.

People were placed in classes depending on two measurements related to occupations:

1. Skill levels: members of each social class tended to work jobs that required similar skill levels (like managerial workers in higher classes).
2. Status: this involved making a judgement about the worth of occupations and the skill set associated with them. The higher the class, the more social status its members' occupations had.

National Statistics socioeconomic classification

The National Statistics socioeconomic classification (NS-SEC), was established in response to the shortcomings of the RGS in 2001.

There are three versions of the scale, with 8, 5 and 3 classes respectively. This makes them collapsible: they can be summarised from an 8-class scale into a 3-class scale.

It's only the 3-class version of the NS-SEC that's meant to be seen in hierarchical terms. The scale approaches social class based on two key ideas:

1. The state of the labour market looks at work security and career development prospects in relative terms.
2. The situation at work looks at how different levels of authority and power operate in the workplace, and how autonomous workers are in each class.

Each of the classes is also subject to different levels of contractual regulations.

• Typically, class 1 employees receive short and long-term benefits (like salary and career progression) in exchange for their service to the employer.

• Classes 5-7 employees receive wages. The amount depends on how much work they've done, or how many hours they've worked.

• Class 3 involves intermediate contracts which combine the above elements.

The Great British class survey

The Great British class survey (GBCS) was established in 2011 by the BBC. It's the biggest class-related survey ever conducted in the United Kingdom, with more than 150,000 responses.

The GBCS asked questions on economic, cultural, and social capital. This included measures of musical tastes and media usage (cultural), proximity to people in certain occupations (social), as well as household income and savings (economic).

Problems with defining and measuring social class

As is the case with many ideas in sociology, social class is difficult to measure empirically. This is because social classes don't exist in and of themselves - they exist based on the indicators which we attribute to them.

Let's look at some of the major issues with defining and measuring social class below.

Fig. 2 - The distinction between objective and subjective indicators complicates the sociological processes of measuring and defining social class.

Objective, subjective, or reputational measures of social class

How people choose to define 'social class' is based largely on the indicators that they use to measure it. The problem is that there are multiple, subjective views of these indicators, how to measure them, and their relevance to social class.

Objective measures of social class

Objective indicators include things like education levels, occupation, and income. Regardless of whether the indicators are considered individually or collectively, people will still be classed according to them. How people feel about these indicators doesn't make a difference.

Subjective measures of social class

However, subjective indicators arise from people's personal views on the system of classification, and their position within it both individually and relative to other people. Subjective indicators include:

• Class consciousness: people's awareness of being in a particular social class, based on the nature of their beliefs and attitudes regarding how classes are defined.

• Class identification: whether people feel they are associated with a particular social class, and to what extent they identify with the association.

• Oppositional consciousness: an awareness of the fact that different classes may have conflicting interests.

Reputational measures of social class

Scholars of sociology sometimes use the reputational method to define and measure social class. The researcher nominates informants who they feel to be very knowledgeable about their community.

The job of the informants is to evaluate the status and class rankings of people in their community and make a judgement about where in the stratification model they should be placed.

There are a few methodological issues with this method - for example, the fact that it relies on the discretion of only a few people to offer their subjective judgements of the whole community.

Structuration theory

The structuration theory was developed by Anthony Giddens (1984), who took a somewhat neo-Weberian approach.

He argued that traditional Weberianism and Marxism overestimate the power of structures in shaping people's behaviour, stating that people have a certain amount of control in being able to reject the constraints of the social class structure. This leads us to wonder how accurate our class measurements and definitions are.

Gender disparities in social class

Sarah Arber (1991) studied the use of social class in identifying differences in health. She argued that traditional gender roles in the family interfere with women's general health. The relationship between gender roles and women's health is, in large part, the result of the family's 'material circumstances'.

The problem here, Arber argues, is that differences in labour market participation (as opposed to domestic labour) and divisions in consumption impact a family's material circumstances. So, these factors aren't accurately captured by occupational scales that seek to define and measure social class.

Unclear boundaries between social classes

Dale Southerton (2002) examined subjective class boundaries from three distinct groups in the south of England. He found that people identified with class based on conventional, socioeconomic factors.

However, Southerton reported many inconsistencies between and within groups, suggesting that the relationship between social class and identity isn't as linear as previously thought. He argued that how people identify with certain social classes has a lot to do with geographical mobility, as well as the conventions of social relations, and local reputations where those people live.