What Is Class Mobility?

Social Stratum is a relatively durable group of social members with the same or similar social status. Social class is a universal social phenomenon. Members of the same social group share similarities in attitudes, behaviors and patterns and values. There are differences among members of different groups.

Social class

Social class divides people into several social classes according to various inequalities. All people in the society have a certain amount of resources, but their share is somewhat different. Different levels of resources are used to distinguish what class people are in. The analysis of the objectively existing stratum is to alleviate stratum conflicts and find ways to coordinate the interests of each stratum, thereby ensuring social stability.

Social classes have the following characteristics:

(1) People of the same class have similar behaviors.

(2) The status of social classes is high or low.

(3) The social stratum is the comprehensive result of occupation, income, and education.

(4) The connotation of the social class will change, and the individual will rise to the higher class or fall to the lower class.

Has become a hierarchical society of historical India (

Jilbert and Kahl classify the factors that determine social strata into three categories: economic variables, social interaction variables, and political variables. Economic variables include occupation. Income and wealth; social interaction variables include personal prestige, social connections, and socialization; political variables include power, class consciousness, and mobility.

Occupation

In most consumer studies, occupation is considered the most important indicator of a person's social class. A person's work greatly affects his lifestyle and gives him corresponding prestige and honor.

Achievement

The higher the individual's achievements, the higher the honor and respect. Personal performance or performance also involves non-work related activities. Maybe a person's professional status is not high, but he or his family can still gain social respect and earn a higher social status by being enthusiastic about community causes, caring for others, and being honest and kind.

3. Social interaction

Most people are accustomed to interacting with people with similar values and behaviors. In sociology, group qualifications and the interaction of group members are the basic forces that determine a person's social class.

4. Property

Property is a kind of social symbol. It conveys information about the social class of the owner. The amount of useful property and the nature of the property also determine the social status of a person.

5. Value Orientation

An individual's values and beliefs are another important indicator of which social class it belongs to. As members within the same class interact more frequently, they develop similar and common values.

6. Class consciousness

Class consciousness refers to the degree to which people of a certain social class realize that they belong to a unique group with common political and economic interests. ^[1]

1. Differences in spending patterns

There are differences in the products selected and used by consumers of different social classes. Some products such as stocks and vacations abroad are more purchased by upper-level consumers, while other products such as cheap clothing and wine are more purchased by lower-level consumers. The spending behavior of lower consumers is in a sense of "compensation". On the one hand, due to lack of self-confidence and not optimistic about the future of marketing, they attach great importance to the current consumption; on the other hand, marketing, low education level makes them prone to impulse purchase.

2. Differences in leisure activities

Social strata affect individuals' leisure activities in many ways. A person's preferred leisure activity is usually a certain type of activity performed by other individuals of the same class or nearby classes, and his adoption of new leisure activities is often influenced by members of the same class or higher classes. Although the proportion of leisure expenditures in total household expenditures is almost the same among different classes, the types of leisure activities are quite different.

3. Differences in information reception and processing

The type and quantity of information collected also vary with different social classes. Consumers at the lowest level usually have limited marketing information sources and lack discrimination for misleading and deceptive information. For the purpose of compensation, they may rely more on information provided by relatives and friends in the purchase decision process. Middle-level consumers get more information from the media, and they are more proactive in collecting external information. As the social class rises, consumers will have more and more channels for information.

4. Differences in shopping methods

People's shopping behavior varies by social class. Generally speaking, people will form the view of which stores are suitable for which consumers of different classes, and tend to shop at stores consistent with their social status.

Social Stratum and Consumption in the Marketing Process For certain products, the social stratum provides a suitable basis or basis for segmentation. Specific steps to formulate a marketing strategy based on social class:

1. Decide in which aspects of the company's product and its consumption process are affected by social status, and then link related status variables to product consumption. For this reason, in addition to using the related variables to layer the society, marketing also needs to collect consumer data on product use, purchase motivation, and social meaning of the product.

2. Determine which social class of consumers should be the target market. This must consider not only the attractiveness of different social classes as the market, but also the advantages and characteristics of the enterprise itself.

3. Position products according to the needs and characteristics of target consumers. The last is to formulate a marketing mix strategy to achieve positioning purposes.

Because consumers of different social classes have obvious differences in occupation, income, education, etc., even if they buy the same product, their tastes, preferences and motivations will be different. Like buying jeans, consumers in the working class may value durability and economy, while consumers in the upper class may pay attention to its timeliness and self-expression. Therefore, market segmentation based on social strata and product positioning on this basis are well-founded and very useful.

In fact, for existing products and brands on the market, consumers will consciously or unconsciously classify them as suitable or unsuitable for consumption. It should be emphasized that consumers in a certain social class will try to imitate or pursue a higher-level lifestyle. Therefore, a brand targeted at middle-level consumers may be more appropriately positioned according to the middle-upper lifestyle.

Western social classes are very unstable, and laws

Social class, similar Chinese words with similar meanings also include class, class, social class, and class society. A collective term for social groups with the same or similar economic level and social identity.

In different periods, the division of society into classes or strata is different. In modern society, when referring to "class" or "class", the individual or group

Can be divided into lower and lower, lower and upper, middle and lower, middle and upper, upper and lower, upper and upper classes.

Social classes have the following characteristics:

(1) People of the same class have similar behaviors.

(2) The status of social classes is high or low.

(3) The social stratum is the comprehensive result of occupation, income, education, etc.

(4) The connotation of the social class will change, and the individual will rise to the higher class or fall to the lower class.

At different times, society

Social class profile

In recent years, with the deepening of China's reform, great changes have taken place in China's social structure and social strata. On the understanding of social stratification, the sociological community has proposed four theories from the perspective of stratification.

Social stratum ten stratum theory

Professor Lu Xueyi described the social differentiation since the reform as class and stratification, and believes that the current Chinese society has been divided into "ten social strata", namely the state and social managers, managers, private entrepreneurs, and professional technology Staff stratum, clerk stratum, individual industrial and commercial household stratum, commercial service employee stratum, industrial worker stratum, agricultural labor stratum, urban and rural unemployed and semi-unemployed stratum.

Why is it so divided? On what criteria? Professor Lu and others believe that there are three different criteria: organizational resources, economic resources, and cultural resources. Professor Lu believes that among the three resources, organizational resources are decisive (just like Marx said that economic ownership is decisive). Because organizational resources have the most important significance, national cadres rank highest among the ten classes.

However, which resource should be placed in the most important position of the stratification standard is a long-controversial issue in the study of social stratification, and it is not easy to prove. Which resource is most important in the layering still needs to be debated and discussed. I have written an article that analyzes ten types of resources that can be used as a standard for social stratification. Therefore, what kind of resource people take as their primary resource is often related to their political purpose and often serves a certain political theory.

Transformation of social strata

However, if we carefully examine the number and proportion, we will find that the change is not so fast. Regardless of the number or proportion, the ten classes are mainly concentrated in low social positions. Therefore, the whole society is still a pyramid structure. Moreover, if we examine the members of each stratum carefully, we will find that the differences between the rich and the poor and the economic status of their members are still very large.

Social stratification theory

This theory was proposed by Professor Sun Liping of Tsinghua University. The theory emphasizes that the fracture is structural, and the cause of social fracture is the rapid social transformation and market transformation. Due to the rapid transformation, many social classes have been eliminated or abandoned. The breaks mentioned in this theory are multifaceted, including: breaks in the reform of state-owned enterprises, breaks in urban and rural structures, breaks between production and consumption, and breaks in culture. The theory holds that, because "social components of multiple times coexist in a society," the social disruption caused is all-round.

So, here, the stratification of the rich and the poor is also interpreted as a broken relationship. Of course, if society really breaks down or is not connected, wouldn't that kind of society collapse? If the theory is examined carefully, the predictions of the theory for the development of Chinese society are not all pessimistic, and there are also optimistic estimates for social transformation. Therefore, the theory is more of a warning to society.

Theory of social structure

This theory was proposed by Professor Li Qiang, Department of Sociology, Tsinghua University. It is mainly calculated based on occupational data in the "Long Form" of the Fifth National Census. The data analysis found that China's overall social structure is neither "olive" nor "pyramidal", but presents an inverted "T-shaped" social structure. The specific method used is to use the "International Socio-Economic Status Index" measurement. From the perspective of the national employment population, a huge group with a very low socio-economic status was found. The scores within this group are highly consistent. The shape is similar to a horizontal one of the inverted Chinese character "T", and a vertical T-shaped column represents a long straight column group, which is composed of a series of different social and economic status Constituted by the hierarchy.

According to the theory of sociology, the "pyramid-type" social structure is a very unsatisfactory structure, and social contradictions are prone to occur due to the huge bottom layer. Professor Li found that the problem of the "inverted T-shaped" social structure is more serious than that of the "pyramid-shaped" structure. Because the bottom layer is larger, the society is more unstable and social conflicts are more likely to occur. The most prominent problem reflected by the "inverted T-shaped structure" is the separation between urban and rural areas. So, does the rest of the world look like this? Of course this is not the case, because they do not have such a clear distinction between urban and rural household registration. Therefore, transforming such a social structure is still very difficult and requires the efforts of several generations. The biggest problem at present is the problem of farmers.

Therefore, Professor Li agreed with the central government's policy orientation of building a new socialist countryside. The second problem is the lack of middle class. Although everyone wants to promote the development of the middle class and the middle part, in fact, so far, the proportion of this class is very small, accounting for about 12% of the total employed population. In other words, 88% of employed people are not middle class. Therefore, structural transformation requires long-term efforts.

Theory of Four Interest Groups in Social Strata

This theory was jointly proposed by Professor Li Qiang, Dr. Shen Yuan, and Professor Sun Liping. The theory is to divide Chinese people into four interest groups or interest groups according to the situation of people's interests gaining and interests being damaged since the reform, namely special beneficiary groups, ordinary beneficiary groups, relatively interest-impaired groups, and the bottom of society group. Because the reform itself is the adjustment of the structure of social interests, and the adjustment of the structure of interests will obviously enable some groups or groups to obtain benefits, while at the same time, cause other groups to lose benefits.

Of course, the situation of "all wins"-that is, every group in the society receives benefits, and it is not absolutely impossible for the overall benefits of society to rise. However, it is too difficult to achieve this situation at present. In recent years, almost every reform of the housing system, medical system, pension system, and unemployment security system will inevitably hurt some people's interests. The theory of the four interest groups is also an attempt to explain the current situation of social differentiation.

So what does the central literature think of the current social stratification in China? It is not difficult to read the central literature since the 16th National Congress of CPC that the central government has used the concept of high, middle and low income people on the issue of stratification. That said, acknowledging the differences is very different from before the reforms, which were trying to eliminate several major differences. How to adjust under the premise of differences? The document of the Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee stated this: focus on increasing the income level of low-income earners, gradually increase the proportion of middle-income earners, and effectively regulate excessively high incomes. Here, expanding the proportion of middle-income earners is the core, because the goal of raising the income level of low-income earners is to advance them into the middle-income earner team. The report of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China for the first time proposed the strategy of "expanding the proportion of middle-income people in the whole society".

Since then, in the important documents of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on economic and social development, it has always emphasized adherence to this strategy. The core idea of this strategy is to optimize the class structure, expand the middle tier of society, and change the society from a "pyramidal" to a "diamond-shaped" or "spindle-shaped" structure. So, on the surface, it seems to be an issue of income distribution policy, but in essence, it is through long-term policy variables that the social structure is finally adjusted.