SES combines many social and economic assets into one number that is not useful for policy discussions.
Back then, I wanted to spread the good news about SES, this ingenious quantitative measurement that psychologists use to condense many forms of social and economic advantage into one variable. Looking back now as I finish my dissertation, I see things very differently. Because SES has no consensus definition, researchers focus on different sets of these resources, proceed to measure them in different ways, and then dub the end product “SES.” Consequently, researchers refer to different constructs with the same label . Simply put, if one study includes debt in their measure of SES and another does not, they are measuring two different things.
Social classes are structural positions in a society’s system of economic production . Classical theories of capitalist class structure identified workers, small business owners, and big business owners while newer theories highlight the intermediary role of the professional-managerial class or define up to 12 classes based on ownership of capital, managerial authority, and educational credentials .
Of course, class is just one of many interlocking systems of oppression, so psychologists can also measure socio-cultural forces like. With these measures, they can study how class mobility is suppressed and health disparities are produced between cultural groups within the same class. If we talk as if SES accounts for all differences in power, we ignore class structure, the unique functions of individual resources, and many forms of cultural difference.