Social Status

To understand social status, we need to start with Max Weber’s (1968) distinction between class and status. In my work with John Goldthorpe, we argue that the Weberian distinction is not only conceptually cogent, but also empirically useful. Class and status do have differing explanatory power in different areas of social life. Following Weber (1968), we understand the status order as a set of hierarchical relations that express perceived and typically accepted social superiority, equality or inferiority of a quite generalised kind attaching not to the qualities of particular individuals but rather to social positions that they hold or to certain of their ascribed attributes, e.g. ‘birth’ or ethnicity (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2004, 2007a). In contrast, we see the class structure as being grounded specifically, and quite objectively, in the social relations of economic life, i.e. in the social relations of labour markets and production units. While typically generating differential, and often extreme, advantage and disadvantage, a class structure does not necessarily take on the consistently hierarchical form that is inherent to a status order. For Weber, status and class are related but distinct forms of social stratification, which could be linked ‘in the most varied ways’ (Weber, 1968, p.932). Social status in the Weberian sense has particular relevance for understanding consumption. Given the notions of perceived social superiority, equality and inferiority, individuals’ position in the status order constitutes an important part of their social identity. To signal status is to lay claim to group membership: to whom one has affiliations, and from whom is one different. Indeed, cultural consumption often takes on symbolic significance of this kind. When asked why they do not go to pop concerts or classical music concerts, people might say, ‘I do not feel comfortable in that setting’ or ‘it is not for people like me’. Such replies would suggest a status concern in the classical Weberian sense. Douglas and Isherwood (1979, p.12) make a similar claim in relation to material consumption: ‘goods are neutral, their uses are social; they can be used as fences or bridges’.