The multiverse of social class:
The multiverse of social class:
The Micro Socio-Economic Class Scheme
CRIS Scientific Seminar 2023-2024
Friday, February 16th 2024, 11:30 am
Sciences Po, Room K008 (1, St-Thomas-d'Aquin)
The multiverse of social class: a multi-scheme, multi-outcome
and multi-country analysis of class stratification
Carlo Barone
Professeur des universités, Sciences Po, CRIS, LIEPP
Social class is a central concept in sociology but sociologists have paid limited attention to its measurement.
This study contrasts the traditional ‘big class’ approach with more recent meso- and micro-class approaches to class analysis with respect to their capacity to explain inequalities in education, income and labor market outcomes, social attitudes and voting.
Different class theories suggest competing mechanisms behind social class stratification and assume primacy of different levels of occupational aggregation. Assessing 10 class schemes across 13 outcomes using data from up to 66 countries and more that 650.000 individuals, we offer the most comprehensive multi-scheme, multi-country analysis of class stratification.
We measure scheme performance in terms of average effect strength and model fit and carry out both pooled analyses and cross-national comparisons to assess whether the construct validity of class schemes varies across countries.
