S1: Social Class: Controversies

S1.1 Social Class Defined and Debated

S1.2 Examples Illustrating Social Class

S1.3 Deprivation and Social Class

S1.4 Regional Variations Across UK in Class, Including Northern Ireland

S1.5 Exercises

S1.1.1 Defining Social Class

• Class is seen as an aspect of social relations by Marx and in Marxian analyses

• Neo-liberal and individualist thought tends to see class in terms of resources, hence in atomistic terms rather than relationally

• The origins of class schema arose in the comparison of feudal classes (e.g. landlord, tenant, merchant) with the emerging capitalist classes

• Class is related to social exclusion and to the distribution of income and wealth

S1.1.2 Class is socially sensitive

• Class is often associated with social status and the respect others give a person.

• Classes in this sense generate a ‘status ranking’, and to be placed in this ordinal ranking is to be placed high or low

• Household and personal income were not recorded in the UK Census 1991, 2001, because these are sensitive indicators of status

S1.1.3 Class Origins

• Many studies allow the analysis of the ‘social class of origin’, indicated by the father’s occupational class or perhaps mothers’ and fathers’ education levels.

• High levels of formal-education are associated with a high class of origin

• The presence of social mobility would imply that the class of origin does not have a deterministic effect on current class.

S1.1.4 Class and Social Exclusion

• Those without jobs are somewhat hard to classify into a social class.

• They are currently among those called ‘socially excluded’.

• An earlier debate labelled some people as an ‘underclass’.

• These are not relational approaches to class, and indeed they are not Marxian analyses.

S1.2.1 National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC)

• From 2001 the NS-SEC has been introduced for use in all official statistics and surveys. It has replaced Social Class based on Occupation (SC, formerly Registrar General’s Social Class) and Socio-Economic Groups (SEG).

• The information required to create NS-SEC is occupation coded to the unit groups (OUG) of the Standard Occupational Classification 2000 (SOC 2000) and details of employment status.

• Note: Further information can be found on the National Statistics website at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/methods_quality/ns_sec/default.asp

NS-SEC (cont.)

• The scheme, NS-SEC, no longer provides a ranking of occupational groups by status.

• It also avoids the notion of ‘unskilled’ work.

• NS-SEC has categorised into 40. Eight analytical categories were derived.

S1.2.1 The NS-SEC Class Schema

• Higher managerial and professional occupation (I)• Lower managerial and professional occupation (II)• Intermediate occupations (III)• Small Employers and Own account worker (IV)• Lower supervisory and technical occupation (V)• Semi-routine occupations (VI)• Routine occupations (VII)• Never worked and long-term unemployed (VIII)

• Note: NS-SEC variable for the 1991 Census was derived from households SARs in order to make it compatible with that of the 2001 Census

S1.2.2 Social Exclusion Even From Class

Categories• A variable of being

student was introduced in the 2001 Census.

• Students were subtracted from Never worked and long-term unemployed and they represent 6.45 percent of the total proportion. However, the table still shows using proportions that 24.32 percent of people age 16-65 show up in the Census without a class category.

  Number Percent

Higher managerial and professional occupation 114,116 7.83

Lower managerial and professional occupation 258,422 17.73

Intermediate occupations 132,485 9.09

Small Employers and Own account worker 97,231 6.67

Lower supervisory and technical occupation 104,053 7.14

Semi-routine occupations 167,834 11.51

Routine occupations 135,028 9.26

Student 94,043 6.45

Never worked and long-term unemployed excluding students 354,546 24.32

Source: UK SARS, 2001, individuals. Crown Copyright.

S1.2.3 Class Proportions: NS-SEC Schema

• In 1991, for Great Britain, among age 16-65

Source: UK SARS, 2001, households. Crown Copyright.

Reduced NS-SEC 7 classes (Census 1991)

9.52

18.17

17.52

8.75

9.12

18.55

18.37

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Higher managerial and professionaloccupation

Lower managerial and professionaloccupation

Intermediate occupationsSmall Employers and Own account

workerLower supervisory and technical

occupationSemi-routine occupations

Routine occupations

(occupation)

(%)

S1.2.3 Class Proportions: NS-SEC Schema

• In 2001, for UK, among age 16-65Reduced NS-SEC 7 classes (Census 2001)

11.31

25.61

13.13

9.63

10.31

16.63

13.38

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Higher managerial and professionaloccupation

Lower managerial and professionaloccupation

Intermediate occupationsSmall Employers and Own account

workerLower supervisory and technical

occupationSemi-routine occupations

Routine occupations

(occupation)

(%)

Source: UK SARS, 2001, households. Crown Copyright.

S1.2.9 Class and Education• Education levels are higher among those who rank

‘high’ in either class schema, as this description of the percentage having different ‘highest qualifications’ shows:

Source: GB SARS, 2001, individuals. Crown Copyright.

NS-SECPerson’s qualification

I II III V V VI VII

No qualification 4.25 8.22 12.89 29.85 26.55 34.75 46.23

‘A’ Levels 29.11 40.77 59.22 39.97 46.24 44.36 33.67

First degree and Higher

55.61 37.73 12.83 10.29 6.19 5.08 2.51

Other 11.03 13.28 15.06 19.89 21.03 15.80 17.59

S1.3.1 Deprivation and Social Class

• At individual level, several material circumstances may indicate social deprivation.

• We expect them to be associated with ‘low’ social class.

• Tables illustrate this strong association.

S1.3.2 Social Class and Deprivation Indicators

Source: GB SARS, 2001, individuals. Crown Copyright.

Social Class % without any central heating

% having no degree

I 3.60% 1.38%

II 11.32% 6.01%

III 6.94% 4.84%

IV 6.24% 8.22%

V 7.74% 7.82%

VI 13.50% 16.52%

VII 12.65% 17.68%

S1.3.3 Home-owning by social class among

individuals

Source: GB SARS, 1991, individuals. Crown Copyright.

S1.3.4 Being a Manager: A Class Apart?

• Individuals may or may not be ‘managers’ or whichever class.

• In this table we show that whereas an individual may be a manager, their household might not be in that social class.

Source: GB SARS, 1991, individuals. Crown Copyright.

Percent of persons In Managerial Occupation

Class of head of Hh %

Professional 4

Managerial & Tech 77

Skilled non-manual 5

Skilled manual 8

Part skilled or other 4

Unskilled 1

100

S1.3.5 Excel Table of Details

• See the full table of the cross-class identity of individuals in 1991.

• This table has the person’s class in the columns, and their head of household’s class in the rows.

S1.3.6 Exercise in Interpreting a Table

• In the slide labelled “Being a Manager: A Class Apart?” you saw a table with 23% of people located in a socio-economic group which is not the same as their social class.

• 18% of managers (class II) were in households whose class was gauged as III-V. How is this possible?

• Note the pros and cons of class analysis.

S1.4.1 Regional Variations Across UK in Class

Source: GB and NI SARS, 1991, individuals. Crown Copyright.

This table shows the percent of people falling into the following socio-economic groups:

Employers and managers in large or small establishments; professional employees and self-employed professionals. (SEG 1-5)

S1.4.2 The Middle Class: Southern UK?

Source: GB and NI SARS, 1991, individuals. Crown Copyright.

S1.4.3 Comprehension Check

• One could roughly use Registrar General classes I, II, and III-Non-Manual to operationalise the notion of a middle class. In the slide showing the size of the middle classes (in this sense) in the Districts of the UK, two districts of the south and two in the north of England are contrasted. Read the slide.

• Interpret the meaning of different sized middle class groupings.

• Use the Excel spreadsheet data on regions (that is, Northern Ireland and 12 regions of Great Britain) or on these districts to make a more detailed class comparison.

• See spreadsheet S1-ClassIntro-ClassRegion.xls.

S1.4.4 Education in the UK Regions

• Education levels can be summarised into four categories. For each country of the UK, taking all ages of persons, the percentages are as follows:

Source: GB and NI SARS, 1991, individuals. Crown Copyright.

Have passed some exams Have a degree

Wales 16% 67%

Scotland 15% 67%

N. Ireland 7% 73%

England 15% 63%

Total 15% 64%

S1.4.5 Education in the Highest Classes in the UK

Regions• In 1991, the percent of people (of ages 16-65) in

Registrar-General Class I having no educational qualifications (ie no exam passes and no degrees) is 20% in NI, 17% in Wales, 21% in England, and 18% in Scotland.

• From your reading about the four main parts of the UK, their politics and their education policies, you may want to comment on this.

• Hints: devolution dates; demographic differences.

S1.4.6 Education in 2001 in Scotland

• Taking all people of all ages, Scotland shows relatively higher levels of education than for Britain as a whole. Here a table compares England with Scotland for the year 2001, across social classes.

S1.5.1 Exercises

• Examine the table of socio-economic groups for three districts on the next slide.

• Discuss how these districts would probably differ in their Registrar-General class structure.

• Make notes on how the Socio-Economic Groups compare with the Goldthorpe schema.

• Why is the Scottish district so different?

Interpretation Exercise

Socio-Economic Group of People’s Occupations (SEG)

Source: GB SARS, 1991, individuals. Crown Copyright.

Percentages

Blackburn Somerset Clydesdale

Employers and managers in large enterprises

4.0 3.5 3.1

Employers in small enterprises 2.4 3.9 2.4

Managers in small enterprises 4.8 6.7 6.3

Professionals – self employed 0.2 0.9 0.5

Professionals – employees 3.2 3.0 3.6

Ancillary artists 8.6 8.8 12.5

Foremen and superior non-manual

0.7 0.8 0.7

Junior non-manual 17.2 19.0 18.6

Personal services 5.4 4.3 5.9

Foremen and worker-managers 3.5 1.9 2.5

Skilled manual 18.7 14.1 13.7

Semi-skilled manual 16.5 11.3 13.0

Unskilled manual 7.1 5.9 8.6

Own-account workers 5.3 7.0 3.4

Farmer-employers and managers -0.1 1.2 0.5

Farmers – own account 0.1 1.9 0.9

Agricultural workers 0.1 1.9 1.7

Armed forces 0.1 2.5 0.5

Not well described 2.1 1.3 1.4

100.0 100.0 100.0

S1.5.2 Exercise Using Excel

See the spreadsheet containing details of the Socio-Economic Groups for individuals’ occupations in 1991.

Using this spreadsheet, collapse categories using Excel formulas, and compare the size of the ‘Employers’ class with the rest, ie ‘Employees and Others’ for the three Districts. This is class analysis. Discuss.

S1.5.3 Critiques of Class

Three main avenues of critique exist.1) Individualists and neo-liberals have argued that class

is out of date, and that individuals may lie in an ‘underclass’ but otherwise class is dead.

2) Others argue that consumption patterns denote class and give class meaning, whereas Marxist class analysis rests entirely on one’s involvement in production.

3) Feminist critiques take a particular standpoint on class.

S1.5.4 Important References

• Crompton, R. (1998) Class and Stratification: An Introduction to Current Debates, 2nd ed., Cambridge: Polity Press.

• Marshall, G.H., D. Newby, D. Rose, and C. Vogler (1988) Social Class in Modern Britain, London: Hutchinson.

• Goldthorpe, J.H., and G. Marshall (1992) “The Promising Future of Class Analysis”, Sociology, 26, 381-400.

• Goldthorpe, J.H. (1987) Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press.

• Saunders, P. (1990) Social Class and Stratification, London: Unwin Hyman.