Indrayan's Social Classification
Education, income and occupation can be combined to devise a system of classification of people into various socioeconomic classes. Social classification in the U.K. is based only on occupation.
Suggested in Table 1 is a scoring system for the three components, and classification on the basis of the aggregate score. The categories of schooling years and of occupation are absolute in this table and can be probably used anywhere in the world without alteration. But the income level in one country can seldom be compared with that in another country except possibly in terms of the purchasing power parity. But this is far too complex to calculate. Thus, a classification of income is on the basis of percentile, which will be specific to the area. There will always be 20 percent of the population below the 20th percentile and another 20 percent between the 20th and 40th percentiles. Yet, the classification may be valid for comparing one subpopulation within a country to another subpopulation and to some extent for international comparison also. Such percentiles are generally available from the distribution of per capita income of the nation.
A large number of common occupations is listed in Table 1 but certainly not all. An indication of the score for other occupations not included in this table should be available from the pattern.
The minimum possible aggregate is 0 and the maximum is 15. The classification is given in the bottom of the Table 1. The percentage of the population in different classes would give an indication of the social health of people. Many diseases and other health conditions have been observed to be associated with such social classification of the subjects.
Table 1 Scoring for social classification
| table1socialclassification.pdf |
