The concept of social class first appeared somewhere in antiquity and the industrial revolution provided the basis for its rapid growth. As factories replaced cottage industries, ownership and pursuit of profit on larger scale created a new group who joined the "landed gentry" to form upper class. As factories expanded in size and proliferated in numbers, a situation was created where a working class drawn primarily from agrarian and cottage settings was born to operate the factory machines. Soon, the two groups reflected vast differences in lifestyle, values, and political views.
Between these two groups a third group developed consisting, for the most part, of the managerial and administrative staff of the factories. Affiliated with this middle group, but outside the owner-worker factory structure, were the small business owner-operators, the professionals (politicians, lawyers, teachers, and so on), and the skilled craftsmen who in special way were business operators. The managers, for obvious reasons developed political and social views compatible with those of the capital owners. Because the remainder of the middle class had a greater degree of independence, based primarily on the security provided by their business personal skills, their political and social beliefs were more diverse but tended to be more similar to those of the upper class than to those of the working class.
Although we profess to minimize or disregard class in present-day society, its residuals are still apparent in much of everyday life. Working class members see work as a place where they can sell their labor. Even though worker organizations have brought some degree of affluence in production-line work, they have not been as successful in helping the worker to obtain greater control over the job and work life. Affluence had been gained at the cost of long hours, increasing division and simplification of tasks, and greater alienation. The worker, even though he or she may dislike the job, stays with it because of the pay. Middle-class workers usually have better working conditions, brighter promotion or advancement prospects, higher levels of job security, and are more likely to consider work as a potential source of satisfaction.
The influence of social class on occupational participation has been well documented by numerous sociological studies. One of the best known of these is Hollingshead's (1949) study which has been succeeded by at least two follow-up studies in more recent years. One significant finding reported in that early study showed that more than three-fourths of upper-middle class youngsters hoped to attain professional or business careers while less than ten percent of lower-working-class youth held such goals. Of course, many factors other than so-called social class influence occupational goals; nevertheless, such overwhelming figures make it difficult to maintain an argument that social class has no influence. Blau et al. (1956) saw the influences of social and cultural structure on occupational choice having an effect due to their impact on the individual's personality development and on the economic and social conditions in which occupational choices are made.
Closely related to the influence of social-class membership are hereditary factors. Osipow (1983) has pointed to the fact that inheritance is most likely to be influential when the older generation has large capital investments to pass along to its offspring. Examples of this situation include family-owned businesses and farms. Osipow also proposes that inheritance may be more influential when families are subject to physical or psychological isolation. Examples of the first include occupations in farming, lumbering, or fishing. Examples of psychological isolation include medical, military, and religious occupations.
The American dream, typified by the famous Horatio Alger stories of earlier days, saw the poor boy rising to fame and fortune despite his lowly birth and innumerable hardships and obstacles. Further, our history records many cases where that is exactly what occurred. To assume, however, that those cases were typical is to stretch the evidence a bit far. Access to educational opportunity is often the crucial factor in those famous success stories. Very often access to education and the quality of that education are directly related to family occupational status, and thus are related to the social-class phenomenon.
Montagna (1977) distinguishes between social class and social status by suggesting that the first is related to the earlier concept of ownership versus worker role as discussed above, while status is primarily a measure of prestige derived from one's occupation and lifestyle. Occupational prestige has been studied extensively for nearly three-quarters of a century. The reported results show surprising consistency over time as well as across very diverse groups based on age, education, gender, and nationality.
Studies by Counts (1925), Deeg and Paterson (1947), and Hakel, Hollmann, and Dunnette (1968) show that, over a forty-two year period and with slightly different reporting groups, occupations tended to hold the same relative status position. In all three studies, the five highest prestige occupations included physician, lawyer, and superintendent of schools, banker, and civil engineer. Similarly, all three studies showed the listed occupations with lowest prestige to be truck driver, coal miner, janitor, and ditch digger. Within the middle ranges some variability was apparent, but even here the changes in position were relatively modest.
Somewhat similar studies were reported by the National Opinion Research Center (1947) and by Hodge, Seigel, and Rossi (1964). The first study used a longer list of ninety occupations and a carefully selected sample of three thousand individuals picked according to region, size of city, age sex, status, and race. The second study was a replication of the first, con ducted approximately fifteen years later. The correlation between prestige scores on the two studies was reported as .99. The resulting scores were generally similar to those of the studies reported above.
Caplow (1954) has identified eight factors that influence occupational prestige. He includes the following items:
- Extent of responsibility in the work.
- Nature of the work.
- Amount of formal education required.
- Length of training.
- Authority.
- Social class attributes of the occupation.
- Income, both amount and certainty.
- Behavioral control.
Most studies of occupational prestige are conducted by asking individuals either to rank occupations according to status or to classify the occupation according to a predetermined scale. As seen in the studies reported above, individuals respond in amazingly similar ways. Thus, we must conclude that society assigns to occupations a reputational level that is widely recognized, understood, and accepted. Further, changes in status can occur, but such changes are usually slow and modest.
