Chapter – 5: Social Class

Chapter – 5: Social Class

The Process of Social Stratification: There are some people who stand high in the community while others rank low in the community. We refer to these levels as social strata or classes. Social stratification then is the general term whereby people in a society are ranked by other members of a society into higher and lower social positions, which produces a hierarchy of respect or prestige.

The term social class is used here in the descriptive, not normative, sense. That is we are not implying that one class is better than another. We are simply describing the class structure, as we know it to be. Some may resent such a discussion or be uncomfortable about it, feeling it is undemocratic. However, social class exists and their patterns must be understood if the marketer is to be successful.

The Nature of Social Class: The term social class has been defined as a group consisting of a number of people who have approximately equal positions in a society. These positions may be achieved rather than ascribed, with some opportunity existing for upward or downward movement to other class. Social class has the following six basic characteristics:

(i) Social Classes Exhibits Status: Social class and status are not equivalent. Status generally refers to one’s rank in the social system, as perceived by other members of society. An individual’s status, therefore, is a function not only of the social class to which he belongs but also of his personal characteristics. Each society subjectively establishes its set of values. These values are reflected in the ideal types of people in that society. That is, those who more nearly conform to the ideal are accorded more respect and prestige, while those who confirm less nearly are ranked lower by the society. In one country, members of the armed services may be accorded the greatest prestige; in another, politicians, educators, or business people may be selected.

Symbols of status – Products and services are seen to have personal and social meanings in addition to their purely functional purpose. The effectiveness of a product or service prestige appeal is conditioned on the basis of five factors: (i) It is relatively expensive -Your are one of the few who can afford it. (ii) It is high quality – you made a wise purchase decision and have shown your good judgment and impeccable taste. (iii) It is in limited supply – not everyone can afford it. (iv) Not everyone can quality for it – only a selected few meet the standards for ownership. (v) It is purchased by a respected and admired group of people and worthy of respect and admiration.

Blurring of symbolism: At one time, class differences in status and its symbols were an accepted fact of life in clothing, housing, and furnishing, food, drink, speech, and even religious affiliation. Today, views of symbols are changing. Rapid advances in technology and communications have spread the desire for and availability of these material pleasures through all social classes. Many of the status symbols of today have not filtered down from the upper class to the middle class and working classes, but instead have percolated up from the bottom. Traditional status symbols are no longer the clear indicator of social class they once were, and marketers must understand these trends in order to take advantages of consumer’ changing values.

(ii) Social Classes Are Multidimensional: Social classes are multidimensional, being based on numerous components. They are not equivalent to, or determined solely by, occupation or income or any one criterion; however, they may be indicated by, or be related to, one or more of these measures. Income (money), occupation generally provides a fairly good clue to one’s social class; in fact, some believe that occupation is the best single indicator.

(iii) Social Classes Are Hierarchical: Social classes have a vertical order to them, ranging form high status to low status. Individuals may be placed within a class on this hierarch, based on status criteria.

(iv) Social Classes Restrict Behavior: Interaction between the social classes is limited because most of us are more comfortable and find reinforcement with those like us in terms of values and behavior patterns. Consequently, members of the same social class tend to associate with each other and not to any large extent with members from another social class because they share similar educational backgrounds, occupations, income levels, or lifestyles. The factor of limited interaction impedes interpersonal communication between different classes about advertising, products, and other marketing elements. 

(v) Social Classes Are Homogenous: Social classes may be viewed as homogenous divisions of society in which people within a class have similar attitudes, activities, interests, and other behavior patterns. For the marketer this means that groups of people are exposed to similar media, purchase similar products and services, and shop in similar stores. This homogeneity allows the marketer in many cases to effectively segment the market by social class and to develop appealing marketing mixes.

(vi) Social Classes Are Dynamic: Social stratification systems in which people have some opportunity for upward or downward movement are known as open system. People in a closed system have inherited or ascribed status; that is they are born into social level and are unable to leave it. Thus, the difference between a system based on earned or achieved status versus one based on inherited status in significant with regard to social mobility.

Sometimes an entire occupational category seeks to raise its status through public relations effort, as evidenced by attempts in many fields to attach the term professional to their work activities (for example, law enforcement officers, accountants, and even truck drivers).

Social Class Measurement And Categorization: Research studies have attempted to stratify social classes using various measurement approaches. Generally three methods have been utilized for social class measurement.

(i) The subjective method: In this method, individuals are asked to rank themselves in the social-class hierarchy. However, because most people are reluctant to categorize themselves as either lower or upper class, the middle class ends up unrealistically large share.

(ii) The reputational method: This approach asks members of a community to rank each other in the status system. Because citizens must know each other in order to rank each other, this approach is limited to small communities and, therefore, cannot be widely used by marketers.

(iii) The objective method: Individuals are ranked on the basis of certain objective factors and are positioned accordingly in the social-status hierarchy. Social class is a conceptual tool, and lacking precise definition, is ultimately not susceptible to perfect measurement nor to absolute standards of validity in case placement.

Problems in Social Class Measurement: In spite of the many approaches used to measure and categorize social classes, there are a number of problems with the concept of ding this. An analysis of the major research is done on this topic has found important shortcomings.

(i) The ranking of social class is based simply upon an average of the person’s position on several status dimensions. This ignores the inconsistencies which arise form an individual ranking high on one dimension such as income but low on individual on another such as education.

(ii) A person’s social class is assumed to be stable, and thus the effects of mobility are ignored.

(iii) An individual identifies only with the social class in which she or he is categorized, thus ignoring reference-group effects form other classes.

(iv) The social class of an entire family may be measured by examination of characteristics of only the adult male wage earner, thus ignoring characteristics of other family members, particularly the employment and education of the adult female in the family.

Resolution of these and other problems would make the concept of social class a more useful one for marketers. Although the size of different classes may vary depending on the classification method used and may shift over time, it is nevertheless quite important to realize that the bulk of the market for most products exists in the broad upper and middle class groups. The very highest class is made up of only about one percent of the population, because of its wealth, it is important to the marketing of concern luxury items. However, this group is too small in number to provide the focal point for most marketers. On the other hand, at the lowest end of the class spectrum one generally finds a market that, even though sizeable, does not have sufficient income for many products. Therefore, most consumer-goods marketers concentrate their major attention on the remaining groups.

Social Class Lifestyles: The significance of social stratification for the marketer is that there are differences in values, attitudes, and behavior of each of the classes. These differences provide a basis on which to segment markets and obtain an enhanced understanding of the behavior of consumers. 

(i) Upper-Upper Class: This class composed of old, locally prominent families – the aristocracy of birth and wealth with at least three generations in the community and class. It is the smallest class group. Its members have occupation as large merchants, financiers, and in the higher professions.

(ii) Lower-Upper Class: The newly reach class, composed of those who have recently arrived at their wealth and are not quite accepted by the upper-upper class. They have the highest incomes of all the classes. They are executive elite, founders of large businesses, and wealthy doctors and lawyers.

(iii) Upper-Middle Class: This class consists of moderately successful professional men and women, such as doctors, lawyers, and managers in the organizations. They have highest income in all the classes. It also includes younger men and women who are expected to reach those occupational status levels within a few years.

(iv) Middle Class: This class is at the top of the common men or average man level. It is composed of non-managerial workers, small-business owners etc. The key motivators for this group are respectability and striving. Men and women want to be judged respectable in their personal behavior by their fellow citizens.

(v) Working Class: These are poor but honest. The largest of all classes, it is composed of skilled workers and small business trades people. Contrary to what may be expected, many of these class members make very good money; they simply don’t use it to become respectable the way the middle class does.

(vi) Upper-Lower Class: This class is the working poor who have not escaped the marginal sector of the labor market. Although above the poverty level, they cannot count on steady employment. Because they may have only some high school education, they are relegated to low-paying, unskilled-labor positions.

(vii) Lower-Lower Class: Living below the poverty line, they receive most of their income from illegal activities or from welfare. Their behavior as consumers is toward getting their kicks wherever they can. Unfortunately, they have a bad reputation among higher classes who view them as lazy, shiftless, against work, and immoral.

The Role of Social Class in Segmenting Markets: It is evident that the concept of social class should help us to understand better the behavior of the various market segments. However, the marketing practitioner wants to know if segmentation on the basis of social class is an advantageous approach.

Social class segmentation involves two basic issues. First, opinions differ concerning which procedures are best for identifying social classes. Second, whether even to use social class in segmenting markets or whether to use a single proxy variable  such as income.

(i) Social Class and Income Related to Lifestyle Patterns: (i) Many lifestyle items showed significant correlations with the index of social class, indicating definite but small differences between the social classes in terms of lifestyle. (ii) Some items showed a much greater correlation with social class than with income, suggesting that social class is a better predictor of consumer living patterns than is income.

Those items that were more related to social class than to income seemed to comprise two clusters: One representing cultural activities (concerts, bridge games); the other representing a group of social interaction items (confidence, outgoing or good looks).

How many the marketer use such information? General lifestyle items that correlate well with product usage might well explain characteristics of the markets activity, interest, and opinion to seller, Such findings could give the marketer some direction for product, promotion, channel and pricing decisions.

(ii) Social Class and Income Related to Consumer Behavior Patterns: The previous section assessed the relationship of social class and income to lifestyle patterns and consumers’ interest on the basis of segmenting markets. A fundamental question not specifically addressed above, however, is whether social class or income is more closely associated with specific consumer activity, particularly with product purchase patterns.

An upper-middle class family is likely to spend a relatively large share of its income on housing in a prestige neighborhood, on expensive furniture, clothing etc. A middle-class family has a better house, but not as a fancy a neighborhood, not as expensive furniture etc. A working class family is likely to have less house, live hand to mouth etc.

Before attempting to use social class to segment markets, the marketer should remember three guidelines:

(i) Social class may not always be a relevant consideration; that is, segmentation by other criteria, such as age and sex, frequently more appropriate.

(ii) Benefits from social class segmentation for undifferentiated products may be less than the cost incurred to achieve such segmentation.

(iii) Social-class segmentation is frequently most effective when used in conjunction with such additional variables as life-cycle stage and ethnic groups.

However, even for cases in which social class may have only limited application, it does provide the marketer with helpful insights- some of which may be specifically used in developing marketing strategies, and others of which at least offer an improved general understanding of consumer behavior.

Social Class and Consumer Behavior:

For many products the group of interest to the marketer are the middle and working classer- by far the largest segment of the market.

(i) Products and Services Consumed: Product choice and usage differ among the social classes. There are items that are bought mainly by the upper classes. However, many products are purchased by a wide variety of consumers so it becomes difficult to distinguish class differences in purchasing patterns.

(ii) Shopping Behavior: A very close relation between store choice and social class membership has been fond, indicating that it is wrong to assume that all consumers want to shop at glamorous, high status stores. However, most women enjoy shopping regardless of their class. Middle and upper class women shopped more frequently than lower class.

(iii) Promotional Response Pattern: The social classes have different media choice and usage patterns. Readers of English and Bangla newspaper differ even for magazines. Even magazines in the same topic area may be aimed at different social classes as target audiences. The basis of advertising differences directed at the various classes should be founded on the differing communication skills and interests of those groups.

(iv) Price Related Behavior: Lower class consumers are poorly informed about price and product alternatives. They are more likely to buy products on sale or priced lower. Regarding price perceptions among the middle and working classes, a shopping simulation showed that working class homemakers have a greater reliance on the general belief that there is a price/quality association; that is higher the price of a product is, the higher the quality.

Are Social Class differences disappearing?: The marketer is vitally interested in changes occurring in the social-class system. Study found that more than two third of the respondents viewed social class as becoming less important than it used to be. Social mobility has increased as many barriers have fallen. The end of job discrimination by race and minority is one contributing factor. Education opportunity is much broader today and all classes have access to higher education. These are some factors involved in the decline of the social-class system. Nevertheless, the social class system still a factor with which to be reckoned in segmenting markets, developing marketing programs, and understanding consumer behavior.

• Consumer Behavior @ Md. Akteruzzaman, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Chittagong University.