Page 148 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 7: Class

conjunction to each other. While understanding buying patterns and consumption behavior, Notes
it is necessary to understand the dynamics of social class. These are discussed as follows :
• People within a social class are similar to each other. This similarity is not only witnessed in
terms of their education, occupation and income, but also their thinking, values, norms,
attitudes, lifestyle and behavioral patterns. There is similarity among members within each
social class and dissimilarity with between social classes.
• Each social class is characterized by certain lifestyle factors, in terms of shared beliefs, norms,
attitudes, activities, interests and behavior. These are similar within people of each class and
different across social classes. In fact, they tend to distinguish the members of a social class
from the members of other social classes.
• However, it may be noted here that people from the middle class may serve as aspirational
groups or have a reference group appeal for the lower; similarly people of the upper class
may serve the same for people in the middle class. With this impact, people in a class may
possess beliefs, norms, attitudes, activities, interests and behavior that are a hybrid of two or
more classes.
• The observed rate of class mobility depends upon a number of factors. First, it varies whit
the overall recorded rate of job changing, which, in turn, varies with the time span between
observations and with the economic climate at the time of measurement. For example, data
for recent years are likely to show the effect of the current economic decline and restructuring.
If a new job can be found when firms go out of business and workers are made redundant it
often means working in a different occupation and acquiring new skills. Second, the rate of
observed class mobility will depend upon the extent of occupational mobility. This may
result from employees normal progression’ through promotion chains into managerial and
supervisory positions.
• Current occupation is recorded using the Key Occupations for Statistical Purposes (KOS)
which contains 546 categories at the lowest level of aggregation. This classification corresponds
to that of the OPCS Classification of Occupations (1980) used to record occupation in the 1980
Census. The fine divisions which the classification makes, together with the other information
in the LFS relating to employment status, mean that the data lend themselves to regrouping
into class schema. In addition to current occupation, the LFS records the occupation in which
the respondent was in paid employment during the week one year before the survey.
• Social classes are collectivities of individuals who occupy similar locations within the social
division of labour. Hence members of a class may be expected to share similar work and
market situations. Distinct classes persist when people move only rarely between classes,
that is, when there is ‘closure’. The greater the degree of closure the more the formation of
identifiable classes is facilitated (Giddens 1980 : 107). Although local factors act to condition
class formation, such as the division of labour and the authority of relationships within the
workplace, occupation is the primary principle of differentiation in the labour market and
thus an effective indicator of class in a capitalist society.
• An important feature of this new schema is that it is a classification of occupations, rather
than of individuals. Stewart, Prandy and Blackburn (1980 : 113) show that it is necessary to
distinguish individuals from occupations when discussing class position. They emphasize
that individuals may come to particular occupations through a diversity of routes and from
many different backgrounds; similarly, there is a diversity of destinations from any one
occupation. Consequently, the meaning of an occupation will not be the same for all engaged
in it.
• The scheme allocates each of the 546 occupations of the KOS classification to one of eight
classes on the basis of the characteristics held by the majority of the respondents in the

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