The Construction Logic of a New Class Schema

Abstract

In the last three chapters, we have argued at length that the simultaneous growth in women’s paid work and in service-sector employment have rendered the class structure both more heterogeneous and more opaque. In this chapter, we wish to bring some system into this heterogeneity by introducing new horizontal divisions within the class structure. Our aim is thus to develop a class schema that, in trying to capture mounting employment differentiation, partly shifts its focus from differences of levels (the vertical dimension) to differences of kind (the horizontal dimension). The separation between different employment status on the one hand and different employment relationship on the other serves as starting point. While it appears very useful for research into social mobility, Erikson and Goldthorpe’s concept of employment relationship does not discriminate horizontally within the large group of middle class incumbents. Hence, we must return to the discussion led in the previous chapter and recall that, on a theoretical level, the degree of advantage attached to an employment relationship merely reflects the skill specificities (and, arguably, the difficulty involved in monitoring) of an occupation.