Putting Men and Women into Classes: An Assessment of the Cross-Sex Validity of the Gold Thorpe Class Schema

Abstract

The Goldthorpe class schema has been criticised as being unsuitable for assessing women's class positions. This paper tests the cross-sex validity of the employee classes within the schema by examining their within-sex association with measures of theoretically relevant occupational characteristics relating to employment and payment conditions, and promotion prospects. Using data from the Social Class in Modern Britain survey, it is shown that class divisions are operationalised similarly among men and women. The only difference of note is a slightly weaker overall association between class position and certain job characteristics among women, which results from the allocation of large numbers of women to class IIIa. With this class excluded from the analysis these differences are removed. It is further shown that the clustering of women in the category of routine non-manual workers stems not from deficiencies in the logic of Goldthorpe's conceptualisation of class, or from limitations associated with its operationalisation using OPCS occupational codes, but from the reality of occupational sex segregation. The analysis thus provides evidence to support the use of the schema as a measure of class position for both women and men.