Measuring Social Class How Social Class is measured Reasons for measuring it Changes in Social Class

Why do we measure? social class? It provides information about the population which can help the government when making social and economic policies It helps us to understand how society is changing It is a useful tool for those who study society such as academics in universities etc.

How does the Government measure social class? The Registrar Generals Model of Social Class (5 classes all related to job) Standard Occupation Classification (9 groupings – again all related to jobs) National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (still mostly jobs but now includes people not working, students, non-working spouses etc. It also grades peoples ‘status’ within an occupation)

Hutton’s ‘30:30:40’ model Divides population into 3 main groups full-time, secure high paid jobs; part time casual, low pay, insecure, low status Unemployed, low income

The preferred system in Higher Mods: LEARN IT! Broad equivalents    National Readership Survey (NRS) Social Grades % of population A Higher managerial, administrative and professional 4 B Intermediate managerial, administrative and professional 22 C1 Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial, administrative and professional 29 C2 Skilled manual workers 21 D Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers 15 E State pensioners, casual and lowest grade workers, unemployed with state benefits only 8 AB = “upper middle” “Lower middle” “Upper working” DE = “lower working”

What Changes have taken place in the class structure in recent years?

Decline of traditional working class: Decline of heavy industry such as coal mining, shipbuilding etc. In 1911, ¾ of the workforce were in manual jobs. By the 1991 census it had fallen to about one third – this is called ‘structural economic change Growth of the service, white collar and light manufacturing sectors

Growth of the ‘new working’ class: Increased home ownership Increased shareholding (privatisation of public industries) Growth of self employed

The growth of women as a % of the workforce: 29% of workforce in 1900 to 46% 2000 Over ½ of people in the top 3 job categories are female More females in skilled non-manual than male (See above re ‘structural economic change’ for reasons)