Occupational skills and subjective social status

Abstract

There has recently been an upswing in research on the sources of social status inequality in capitalist democracies. In sociology it has long been argued that the occupational structure is a central hub of status inequality, yet there is a shortage of multivariate studies on the significance of occupations for the social status of individuals. The main purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationship between occupational skills and subjective social status in advanced knowledge economies. We study individuals’ subjective social status across 25 countries, using multilevel modelling and data from the European Social Survey. Results show that (i) a substantial share of the variation in subjective social status is between occupations within countries; (ii) the occupational gradient in status is tightly positively linked to the level of educational requirements in jobs; and (iii) individuals in non-manual work have additional status benefits as compared to those in manual work.