A person’s social class is difficult to determine. It depends on many factors, including
occupation, sources of income, marketable abilities, access to consumer good and services, and membership in status groups and political parties
.
Social class refers to the the grouping of individuals in a stratified hierarchy based on
wealth, income, education, occupation, and social network
(though other factors are sometimes considered).
Our classes are largely based on socioeconomic status, or SES, which is a categorization formula that considers a person’s income, education, and occupation. This equates to three stratification factors:
wealth, power, and prestige
.
What are the five factors that make up class?
The Class System
A class consists of a set of people who share similar status with regard to factors like
wealth, income, education, and occupation
.
Not only can different social class cultures lead
to distinct patterns of interpersonal behavior
, they can also lead individuals to experience mismatches between their social class culture and the culture of important social institutions like college or the workplace.
Your
social class can influence both your interests and your values
, which makes a difference in your relationships. Although social status is not the only influence on relationships, it does matter, and should be recognized so you can deal with it successfully.
Operationalization of Social Class:
There are multiple ways in which one can operationalize social class. For example, one can use
home ownership, fathers’ education
, and fathers’ occupational SES score as separate indicators of social class.
More specifically, the lower the class,
the lower the health self-management ability
, which in turn leads to worse mental and physical health statuses. Revealing the importance of health self-management in the influence of social class on mental and physical health.
Gallup has, for a number of years, asked Americans to place themselves — without any guidance — into five social classes:
upper, upper-middle, middle, working and lower
. These five class labels are representative of the general approach used in popular language and by researchers.
It has assigned the quintiles from lowest to highest as
lower class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, and upper class
. These definitions equate class with income, permitting people to move from class to class as their income changes.
Social stratification is based on four basic principles which includes Social stratification is
a trait of society
, not simply a reflection of individual differences; Social stratification carries over from generation to generation; Social stratification is universal but variable; Social stratification involves not …
For example, in some cultures,
wisdom and charisma are valued
, and people who have them are revered more than those who don’t. In some cultures, the elderly are esteemed; in others, the elderly are disparaged or overlooked. Societies’ cultural beliefs often reinforce the inequalities of stratification.
Social classes provide their members with distinctive sub-cultures that prepare them for specialised functions in society. It is said that the social class is
useful as an efficient means of role allocation in the society
. Through role allocation, a society fixes social responsibilities of persons.
Social class and crime are connected in a magnitude of ways. Those from lower economic strata
are more likely to be arrested, convicted
, and incarcerated for crimes than are more affluent individuals. Prisoners in the United States are more likely to be unemployed and earn less than the general population.
Changing social class is a
“Yes
, and” process at best. You may add to your life and you may experience internal conflict. You may do both. Changing your social class may alienate you from people you know and may alienate you from the person you are now.
Does education level affect relationship?
College-educated adults
are more likely to be married than less-educated adults
. … In addition, men with a higher level of education are more likely to get married in the first place when compared with less-educated men. There also are distinctive patterns in marriage longevity by race and ethnicity.
