Page 134 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 7: Class

The allocation of occupations to classes was first performed using the occupational characteristics Notes
of only the men in the sample, and then, independently, using those of the women, thus
generating two comparable schema. All the results reported below were obtained using the
male schema. All the results reported below were obtained using the male schema for classifying
the men and the female schema for classifying the women. Most occupations are situated in the
equivalent classes in the two schema; note 4 lists those occupations placed in different classes.
Most of the differences between the male and female classifications arise because fewer women
than men are self-employed, and because in some occupations men and women have different
average levels of educational qualification. The distribution of the sample amongst the schema’s
classes (Table 7.1) shows the high percentage of women in clerical work, particularly amongst
full-time workers; the complete absence of any occupation where the majority of women have
an apprenticeship, and the preponderance of lower manual workers amongst part-time working
women.
Table 7.1 shows the cross-classify the respondent’s class one year before the survey with their
class in 1981, and show the extent of mobility between the classes. In order to indicate the
pattern of flows, each table has been fitted to a model of quasi-independence (Goodman 1968).
Table 7.1 : Percentage distribution in KOS Classes for men and women

Men Women
full-time full-time part-time

1. Employers with employees 1.5 1.3 0.1
2. Self-employed without employees 5.8 2.3 1.1
3. Professional and managerial 19.7 17.5 4.8
4. Technical 4.0 8.0 7.3
5. Clerical 15.4 43.7 35.5
6. Craft 18.2 0.0 0.0
7. Higher manual 7.1 2.7 3.3
8. Lower manual 28.3 24.5 47.8

100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
(55210) (21732) (13444)

This model hypothesizes that there are no structural barriers impeding the mobile, so that the
destination classes of movers are unrelated to their classes of origin. The model serves as a
benchmark against which to judge the extent to which the flows are structured. The measure
used to assess the difference between the degree of mobility predicted by the quasi-independence
model and the observed mobility is the standardized residual, obtained by dividing the
difference between the observed and predicted flows by the square root of the predicted flow
(Gilbert 1981). A positive residual indicated that the observed flow is larger than that predicted
by the quasi-independence model.
3. Short-term Occupational Class Mobility
Men’s class mobility Table 7.2 shows the extent and distribution of class changes amongst men
over a one year period using the KOS class schema. During the year, 3.6 per cent of the men
changed class. The corresponding percentage using the RG schema is little different at 3.7 per
cent. Because the KOS classification has eight categories and the RG classification has six, one
would expect the KOS schema, not the RG schema, to yield the higher rate of class changing.
The fact that this is not so is due to the greater ability of the KOS classification to group

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