What problems are associated with trying to measure social class?

The briny paradox with trying to measure genial mob is that the term kind material body is most controversial. Therefore the demeanor in which it is heedful will vary according to how it is defined. Many theorists designate that the incredulity of how to measure social phase cannot be separated from the question of severalize-consciousness. Thompson acceptd that social course of instruction would only exist if in that respect were class- consciousness. By this he meant class is only class if you regard that you belong to a true class.What this meant was that souls in the equal class situation sh atomic number 18 a sense of their common interest, and thus think or be moderate in a similar manner. Whereas Marx sweard that class was identified according to an souls relationship to the dominant allele mode of production. He believed that the two great classes of a capitalist indian lodge were the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie were those who were th e avouchers and controllers of the means of production ands the proletariat were those who only had their own labour power, which they were forced to sell in order to survive.This then leads to class inequalities, as the bourgeoisie will aim to maximise production with stripped-down costs. This would mean that the bourgeoisie make the proletariat work exceptionally rugged and pay very little. Marx would consider that these economic inequalities lead to class inequalities. The main way in which individuals are allocated to their social class is via their employ custodyt set up and the structure of employment has been divided up in various shipway in order to generate them. This is bed as the employment mass approach to class analysis.There are many ways in which class schemes that are available. One of the main schemes is the autobiography general. This scheme has sixer categories, ranging from master copy occupations to unskilled manual(a) workers, which clearly show th e hierarchy of occupations advantages and disadvantages. The point generals class scheme show support for Marxist theory of class inequality on the bases of economic concomitantors. As he argued that class particle does occur on the bases of the type of employment you are in and the register generals class scheme clearly reflects this.Marx would also go on to argue that those in the unhorse professions are unable to move up the class structure as it is not in the interest of the bourgeoisie, also they are not given the uniform life chances as the bourgeoisie, for example the preparation that those in the top professions receive is argued to be better than those in the lower professions. It has also been argued that even if social mobility does occur its is much harder for the operative class to get to the top professions as they are faced with more knotty along the way.However there are a number of bothers with victimization the register generals class scheme to define whic h social class an individual belongs to. This is be former in order to gain the information to categories individuals into their social class the judicature produce a census form, which the public must complete. However because it is a questionnaire there are many orderological problems associated with it. The main one creation that the public may not be completely honest when complementary the form, in fear of beingness judged or not wanting others to know their personal information.Also the census only requires a simple military control description and not detailed information, this can not then be a reliable way in which to categories hoi pollois occupational status. Another problem with employ occupational cuticles to measure social class is that although a reliable job may come under the heading of a manual worker the actual job it self may be passing paid and involve a curing of skill, but due to the fact the individual is doing manual work they would still be clas sified as working class.An example of this would be a builder, their job involves a lot of skill and is highly paid but it is still a manual job, thusly you would be considered working class. Another main problem with using the register generals class scheme is that there are many people who dont classify to any of the categories provided. For example domestic workers and employer dont figure in the scale therefore how can they be allocated to a certain class. Another method for measuring social class is on cultural and political factors.What is meant by this is that the type of lifestyle you lead is a measure for what social class you fit into. For example if an individual wears designer clothes such as Gucci and drives a fashionable car then they would be consider to be middle or even upper class, due to their lifestyle. However if an individual was to elect Labour in the public election then they would be considered to be working class as they are believed to be a working class p olitical party.The problem with using this measure of social class is that it is very subjective and to what one individual would define as middle class another may define as working class. Also another problem is that although a person may have the lifestyle of a middle class person e. g. expensive clothes etc they may have a working class job and therefore work extremely long hours in order to live a life similar to the middle class.Another problem with class cadence is the gender factor, although many theorist consider the topic of class to be gender neutral, it has been argued by many that this is not the case. It has been argued that the class structure for men differs from womens due to employment opportunities. It was not until recently that women were actually able to do the same jobs as men and get equal pay. Therefore this would cause problems when measuring womens class post, because although they were working their income was fairly low compared to men doing the same j ob.Therefore a man and women who doing similar jobs were unlikely to be measured at the same social class if the cultural method was being used. However if they using the employment aggregated method they would be the same social class. This therefore shows the some of the problems with the dissimilar methods available. The other gender problem is that until recently women were not able to get the highly professional and tendinous jobs therefore would not have been considered as middle class unless there husbands job was middle class.However once women were able to get the higher(prenominal) military strengthed jobs their employment still had little effect on the families social position because it was always the males employment that was used even if it was lower than the womens. Therefore having considered the different measures that are available to measure social class I believe that it very difficult to measure a persons class position on just the bases of either their occup ation, cultural or political factors. This is because I dont believe a person occupation does necessarily indicate which class a person belongs to.This is because although a person may have a professional job there wealth in terms of assets may be very low. Also an individuals may have a classification of a professional job but their status within that job may be low, thats why I feel that Goldthorpes class scheme is a more accurate than the register generals. Having brought this discussion to an end I believe that in order to accurately measure an individuals social class position all three dimension should be measure (economic, political and cultural) as this would give a more valid social class position.