Social Grading of Occupations

Abstract

t-T1HIS IS the first report of work undertaken as the result of a grant | received by the London School of Economics from the Trustees of v the Nuffield Foundation. The purpose of the research is to discover the chief factors responsible for social class differences, for movement and hlndrances to movement from class to class under present conditions) and for the changes that have been taking place in the class structure of the population of England and Wales in recent years. Although the first approach to the problem must be general, because no class in the population is selfcontained and the boundary between neighbounng classes is bluxTed, interest will be centred chiefly in the middle class, for about this class much is surmised and little is known with certainty; past studies have been confined for the most part to the so-called working class. A survey of a large random sample of the population on a nation-wide scale is being camed out in order to discover possible evidence of class mobility by change of occupational grade with changing circumstances, also by comparing the grades of parents and their children and by change of grade on the part of women on mamage if the grade of occupation of the husband differs from that of the fe's father. The grade of occupation first entered is largely detened by educational opportunity, and particulars as to education as well as occupation will be collected in the random sample surveyv A report on this work will be published in due course. Occupational status is of course not the only factor which contributes to the detertnination of class but, being closely linked with economic status, it obviously has a very important beanng on class. If then we are to trace changes in social class by changes in occupation, a preliminary examination of the social grading of occupations is essential.