In social stratification research, the most frequently used social class schema are based on employment relations (EGP and ESEC). These schemes have been propelled to paradigms for research on social mobility and educational inequalities and applied in cross-national research for both genders. Using the European Working Conditions Survey, we examine their criterion and construct validity across 31 countries and for both genders. We investigate whether classes are welldelineated by the theoretically assumed dimensions of employment relations and we assess how several measures of occupational advantage differ across classes. We find broad similarity in the criterion validity of EGP and ESEC across genders and countries as well as satisfactory levels of construct validity. However, the salariat classes are too heterogeneous and their boundaries with the intermediate classes are blurred. To improve the measurement of social class, we propose to differentiate managerial and professional occupations within the lower and higher salariat respectively. We show that implementing these distinctions in ESEC and EGP improves their criterion validity and allows to better identify privileged positions.
How we measure social position is vital to our ability to account for different aspects – imagined or real – of the stratification order. This research note surveys applied research and quantifies differences in the way researchers study stratification. It analyses all research articles published from 2015-2019 in the five most-cited sociological journals and ISA RC28's official publication. We focus on empirical articles with a substantive focus on occupation-based stratification. Empirically, we observe a dominance of income as a measure for social position. Social class is a close second trailed by status, prestige, and desegregated occupational measures. Among social class measures, researchers prefer EGP-like schemas and apply them as a paradigmatic "one-size-fits-all" measure in diverse fields of application.
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