Relationship between objective and subjective indicators of social class from a psychological perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21615/cesp.7164Keywords:
social class, socioeconomic status, subjective social status, educational level, income levelAbstract
In recent decades, the interest from Social Psychology in the objective and subjective aspects of social class and its association with other psycho-sociological variables has grown. Thus, in this work we set out to analyze the relationship between the socioeconomic status (SES), singular indicators of the SES (educational level and occupation), the level of family income and the subjective social status (SSS), and also to investigate the differences in the SSS according to gender, in a sample of 442 citizens from Greater Córdoba, Argentina from 18 to 64 years old (M = 38.61, DE = 14.23). The study design was cross-sectional, ex post facto retrospective. Descriptive, correlation and group comparison analysis were conducted. The results showed that, regardless of their SES, people perceived to have a medium SSS (79%). In addition, we find that the relationship between SES, family income level, educational level, occupation and SSS was statistically significant. According to the regression model, the level of family income was the only indicator related to SSS. Also, we found that women with a low SES (Mdn = 5.00, R = 6.00) perceived to have a higher SSS than men with a low SES (Mdn = 4.00, R = 6.00). In conclusion, people tend to position themselves in the middle levels of the MacArthur scale even when their objective socioeconomic status does not reflect that position. In addition, women with a low SES tend to position themselves at higher levels on the MacArthur scale than men with a low SES.
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