Page 141 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes Table 7.6 shows mobility between KOS classes for women working part-time. The overall
percentage of part-time working women who change, 2.9 per cent, is slightly lowe than for
either men or full-time working women, and considerably lower than the 4.1 per cent obtained
from the RG Classification. The RG sechema is particularly badly suited for classifying part-
time woking women’s occupations, not surprisingly given its origins as a classification
intended for full-time working men. The apparently higher rate of mobility arises largely
from movements between the RG unskilled and partly skilled classes. The distinction of skill
which are supposed to sort occupations into these classes tend to be made using the
characteristics of men’s work, and so lead to anomalies when applied to women’s, and
particularly part-timers’ work. For intance, the staff who are responsible for providing school
dinners to children include cooks (classified by the Registrar-General’s (RG) classification
into class 3M, kitchen helpers (RG V)), and canteen assistants or ‘dinner ladies’ (RG IV). All
these women are in similar labour market positions, working part-time with low rates of pay
and no career prospects, and yet they fall into three separate RG classes. The KOS schema
includes them all in Class 8, lower manual.
Table 7.6 : KOS Class by KOS Class one year ago, for women working partime.

Current KOS Class (1981)

KOS Class 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
one year ago
1 Employers with 19 0 0 0 2 0 0 6
employers
(12.6) –0.2 –0.6 –0.7 –0.7 –0.8 –0.8 1.5
2 Self-employed 0 142 2 0 4 0 2 9
0.2 10.7 1.4 –1.1 –1.1 0.0 0.6 0.8
3 Prof, managerial 0 0 626 5 29 0 0 17
–0.3 –0.4 (7.5) 0.7 1.7 0.0 –2.0 –1.0
4 Technical 0 0 3 942 12 0 1 6
–0.2 –0.3 1.9 (2.3) 0.9 0.0 –0.6 –1.2
5 Clerical 0 0 11 17 4626 0 7 82
–0.6 –0.8 0.7 1.0 (2.5) 0.0 –2.1 0.4
6 Craft 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0.0 0.0
7 Higher manual 0 1 1 1 10 0 399 11
–0.2 3.0 –0.2 –0.6 –0.1 0.0 (5.7) 0.1
8 Lower manual 1 1 7 16 96 0 33 6297
0.8 0.1 –1.4 –0.5 –0.6 0.0 2.9 (2.4)

Total 20 144 650 981 4779 0 442 6428
(0.1) (1.1) (4.8) (7.3) (35.5) (0) (3.3) (47.8)
The rate of movement out of KOS Classes 1, 2 and 3 for part-timers is very high, an that for
Class 7 only slightly lower. As with full-time working women, the numerically small classes
are also those with the highest rates of outward flow. However, part-timers are much more
likely to be working in ‘lower manual’ jobs that full-time working women. In comparison with

136 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY