Page 144 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 7: Class

and twice the rate for clerks, while for women the inflow rate is more than four times greater Notes
than the average. Male sales representatives and female shop workers also have high rate of
inflwo. Sales work thus has an effect on mobility through the class structure out of proportion
to the number of people in the occupation. The same is found amongst part-timers, where shop
sales work is not only the second largest occupation for part-time working women, but also
has an inflow rate over 50 per cent greater than the average.
Other occupations amongst those listed, notably teachers, farmers, and typists and secretaries,
show very low rates of inflow, and stand as examples of occupations which have a high degree
of closure. As the examples indicate, the basis for closure can be very varied. For instance,
teachers depend upon educational qualifications as a barrier to admittance, while mobility into
farming is probably restricted both by the capital required and by the need to move house to
live on the land. The anomalously high rate of class mobility into nursing is accounted for by
the OPCS definition of this occupational group, in which unqualified nursing auxiliaries as
well as certificated nurses are included.
5. Discussion We have taken the view that classes are perpetuated to the extent that they exhibit
closure, defined in terms of a comparative absence of movement into and out of the class, and
that the structural relationships between classes are delineated by the patterns of interclass
flows. A system with no structure would be one in which mobile individuals would be as
likely to move to any one class as to any other; this is the quasi-independence model against
which the observed inter-class mobility has been compared in earlier tables. The observed
structure will be shown by the distribution of differences between the flows predicted by this
model and the actual flows, positive residuals indication areas where the flow is larger than
the base line model predicts, and negative residuals, areas where there is less movement than
predicted. This is seen most clearly in the male occupatinal structure. If one focuses only on
those standardized residuals in Table 7.2 which are positive and relatively large (greater than
2.0), one finds that they are grouped into distinct clusters, one in the top left corner joining the
two employer classes, one in the centre of the table linking the managerial, technical and
clerical classes, and one in the bottom right corner connecting the craft, and higher and lower
manual classes. These clusters signify the continuing importance of the familiar distinctions
between capital and labour, autonomy and supervision, and manual and mental work, as
reflected by the barriers of social closure which are erected on these foundations.
Within this overall pattern of three broad sectors within the class structure, there are several
areas of special interest. Amongst men, there is a relatively high degree of mobility between
the self-employed Class 2 and the lower manual Class 8, both from worker to slef-employment
and in the reverse direction. Indeed, amongst men, this two way flow is the only one of
significance to span the dividing lines between the three main sectors. Amongst women, there
is a much higher rate of flow from the lower manual class to the ‘employer with employees’
class than would be expected from the quasi-independence model. These flows indicate that
there are numbers of men and women coming from origins in manual employment to set
themselves up on their own account as small entrepreneurs or self-employed artisans.
There is a marked difference in the occupatinal chances of men and women located in Classes
1 and 2, the employers and slef-employed. In the case of men, these classes together account
for 7.3 per cent of the sample, and just over 3 per cent leave them during the course of a year,
an exit rate about 14 per cent lower than the average over all the classes. The same two classes
include only 3.6 per cent of the full-time working women, and have a rate of outflow of 4 per
cent, about 30 per cent greater than the average. For men, therefore, the ownership of productive
capacity is not only relatively common, but once achieved, is relatively secure. For women, it
is much less common, and relatively insecure.

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