Class and Status: The Conceptual Distinction and its Empirical Relevance

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(24/05/2024, 21:24:24)

“In Europe, and especially in Britain, the idea of class and status as two qualitatively different forms of social stratification retained currency through the 1970s, following its effective deployment in Lockwood’s influential The Blackcoated Worker (1958) and also in various community studies.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 512)

Social Status “we return to Max Weber’s distinction between class and status as related but different forms of social stratification. We argue that this distinction is not only conceptually cogent, but empirically important as well. Indeed, class and status do have distinct explanatory power when it comes to studying varying areas of social life.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 512)

“Within politics, class rather than status predicts Conservative versus Labour Party voting in British general elections and also Left–Right political attitudes. But it is status rather than class that predicts Libertarian–Authoritarian attitudes.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 512)

“have attracted much attention, particularly his attempt to rethink and indeed overcome Weber’s opposition between class and status (1984:xii): that is, by treating status as the symbolic aspect of class structure that is itself deemed to be not reducible to economic relations alone (cf. Weininger 2005)” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 513)

“we sought to reassert the conceptual value of the distinction between class and status; and to argue, on empirical grounds, that, in present-day British society at least, a status order is still discernible (Chan and Goldthorpe 2004).” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 513)

“We seek to show, again on empirical grounds, how, in different areas of social life, the stratification of outcomes, whether seen as life-chances or as life-choices, may predominantly occur on the basis of either class or status.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 513)

“we then hope to clarify and reinforce the case for treating class and status as different forms of stratification that exert their effects through quite distinct social processes, or mechanisms.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 513)

Social Status “Taking a broadly Weberian position, we regard a class structure as one formed by the social relations of economic life or, more specifically, by relations in labor markets and production units. Thus, a primary level of differentiation of class positions is that which sets apart employers, self-employed workers, and employees.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 513)

“n modern societies, however, further differentiation must be recognized among employees in terms of their relations with employers, as these are regulated by the (implicit as well as explicit) terms of their employment contracts.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 513)

“Second, while we regard the class structure that the schema represents as being, preeminently, a structure of inequality, we do not envisage classes as always falling into a simple hierarchical ordering (cf. Dahrendorf 1959:74–77; Giddens 1973:106).” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 514)

“Individuals in different classes may be advantaged and disadvantaged in differing and, perhaps, not entirely commensurable respects as a result of the employment relations in which they are involved.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 514)

“Third, the classes of the schema are not intended to capture “real” sociocultural groupings in the sense of collectivities recognized by and subjectively meaningful to their members, and with well-defined social boundaries as created, say, by processes of selection, socialization, or closure.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 514)

“still following Weber, we do not treat classes as “communities” (“‘Klassen’ sind keine Gemeinschaften”) but simply as existing insofar as “a number of people have in common a specific causal component of their life-chances” (Weber [1922] 1968:930) that derives from their relations within labor markets and production units—which, we wish to add, also importantly condition various life-choices that they are typically required to make.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 514)

“class effects are brought about in two main ways. On the one hand, they result from events that impact on those holding different class positions with significantly differing frequencies—quite independently of their class awareness (e.g., members of Class VII do not have to think of themselves as being working class to have a far higher risk of unemployment than members of Class I). And, on the other hand, such effects result simply from members of different classes pursuing their particular interests and goals in ways shaped by the particular patterns of constraint and opportunity by which their class situations are characterized—independent of any influence of class-specific values and norms which may or may not exist (cf. the distinction between Massenhandeln and Gemeinschaftshandeln made by Weber [1922] 1968:930).2” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 514)

Social Status “following Weber ([1922] 1968:932–39), we regard a status order as a structure of relations of perceived, and in some degree accepted, social superiority, equality, and inferiority among individuals. This does not reflect personal qualities, but rather the degree of “social honor” attached to certain of their positional or perhaps purely ascribed attributes (e.g., birth or ethnicity).3 The social hierarchy thus created is expressed in differential association, especially in more intimate kinds of sociability—Weber speaks of commensality and connubium—and in lifestyles of differing distinction that are seen as appropriate to different status levels.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 514)

“In status orders in” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 514)

“their most developed forms—such as were found in early modern Europe—the demarcation of patterns of association and lifestyles is clear-cut and often institutionally grounded, as, for example, through sumptuary legislation. In modern societies, however, the development of ideas of citizenship, implying a fundamental equality of legal and political rights (cf. Lockwood 1992:173–78; Marshall 1950), means that the status order takes on an increasingly conventional character, or in other words, is for the most part, maintained only informally.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 515)

“Thus, the hierarchy of status relations becomes less one of well-defined status groups than one of relatively loose social networks, and its expression is more implicit or covert.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 515)

“We have already provided systematic evidence of the persistence of a status order in Britain (Chan and Goldthorpe 2004). Drawing directly on the work of Laumann (1966, 1973), we take occupation to be one of the most salient positional characteristics to which status attaches in modern societies. And we assume close friendship implies a relation of basic equality between individuals—that is, one into which status differences are unlikely to intrude.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 515)

“We use national survey data to investigate the occupational structure of close friendship, and we take dissimilarity indices for the occupational distributions of friends by occupational grouping as input to a multidimensional scaling analysis.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 515)

“From this, a leading dimension emerges on which occupational groupings are ordered, according to the degree of similarity of their friendship patterns, and which can, we believe, be most plausibly interpreted as representing status. That is to say, starting from the structuring of a relationship implying social equality, a structure of inequality can be inferred.5” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 515)

“In general, occupations that require working with symbols and perhaps people, and especially professional occupations, confer the highest status, while those that require working directly with material things confer the lowest status.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 515)

“As noted above, in addition to occupation, status is also likely to be based on ascribed characteristics, such as ethnicity. Thus, Laumann (1973) treats ethnoreligious affiliation as a further characteristic of primary importance for status in modern American society. However, he shows that the status-conferring effects of occupation are largely replicated within each ethnoreligious grouping that he distinguishes, and that no interaction effects occur. We expect a similar situation to be found in the British case, although we do not so far have data available that would allow the matter to be empirically investigated.” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 515)

Social Status “First, while status, as determined by an analysis of the occupational structure of close friendships, is correlated with income and education, the correlation is quite modest, especially for income (Chan and Goldthorpe 2004).” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 517)

“It is also distinct from—supposed—scales of occupational prestige, insofar as these simply reflect judgments of job rewards and requirements (cf. Goldthorpe and Hope 1974).” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 517)

Social Status “Second, while a status gradient can be seen as running across classes (as represented by the schema of Table 1) from the higher professional and managerial salariat down to the nonskilled working class, there is still a good deal of variation in status homogeneity within classes. Some classes, notably Class II, the lower salariat, and Classes IVac and IVb, small employers and the self-employed, show relatively high internal stratification by status, while others, notably Class I, the higher salariat, and Class VI, skilled manual workers, are far more status homogenous (see Chan and Goldthorpe 2004, fig. 6).7” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 517)

Social Status “Third, although we shall for convenience refer to the occupational categories of our scale as status groups, we would again, as in the case of classes, not wish to imply that they are “real” sociocultural entities, or at all events not ones of a clearly bounded kind. Rather, as we already indicated, we see the social organization of status in modern societies as taking the form of relatively loose social networks—networks of relations, often extensive in space, among individuals who come together as equals in more intimate forms of sociability, and who tend to value and seek to pursue broadly similar lifestyles with, perhaps, only quite limited normative reinforcement from the expectations of” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 517)

“significant others.8” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 518)

“This final point is of particular importance in differentiating our position from that recently taken up by Grusky and his colleagues in response to claims of the decay, or death, of class in contemporary societies (e.g., Kingston 2000; Pakulski and Waters 1996). If such claims are to be adequately countered, it is argued, class analysis and, it would seem, the study of social stratification more generally, will need to be ratcheted down to and regrounded at the level of occupations (see, e.g., Grusky 2005; Grusky and Sørensen 1998; Grusky and Weeden 2001; Weeden and Grusky 2005).” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 518)

“While Weber ([1922] 1968:932) sees status groups (Stände) as tending, unlike classes, to form as communities (Gemeinschaften), he still adds that these are often “of an amorphous kind,” especially in “modern democracies,” and he speaks also of status “circles” (Kreise).” (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2007, p. 518)