Social Class in Europe

David Rose is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex. He was academic convener of both the ESRC Review of Government Social Classifications, which led to the creation of the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification, and the of ESeC project, and has published widely on the topic of social class in the UK, including Social Class in Modern Britain (with Gordon Marshall, Howard Newby and Carolyn Vogler, 1988); Constructing Classes (with K. O’Reilly (ed.), 1997); A Researcher’s Guide to the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (ed. with David Pevalin, 2003); and The National Statistics Socio-economic Classification: Origins, Development and Use (with David Pevalin and Karen O’Reilly, 2005). He is an Academician of the Social Sciences.Eric Harrison is Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Comparative Social Surveys at City University London, UK. He was the assistant convener of the ESeC project, but now works in the ESS coordination team. His principal research interests lie in social stratification, social inequality and comparative research methodology.

"...a thorough introduction to the European Socio-economic Classification (ESeC), its theoretical foundation, operationalization, and validation. The editors were principals of the international effort that produced the classification, and the authors were all participants in its development....For anyone intending to use the ESeC data, or of adapting the instrument to different national contexts, it is essential."—Lawrence Raffalovich SUNY Albany, volume 116, number 6 (1 May 2011) of the American Journal of Sociology.

• Part 1: Introducing the ESeC 1. The European Socio-economic Classification: A Prolegomenon 2. From Derivation to Validation: Evidence from the UK and beyond 3. The Application of ESeC to Three Sources of Comparative European Data Part 2: Measuring Social Class 4. Social Class and Employment Relations: Comparisons between the ESeC and EGP class schemas using European data 5. Measuring Social Class: The case of Germany 6. The Comparative Measurement of Supervisory Status 7. Stable and Consistent with the Employment Relations’ Theoretical Background? Does the prototype ESeC show these qualities with French data? Part 3: Using ESeC in Comparative Research on Social Class 8. The Effectiveness of ESeC and EGP in Clustering Occupations: A study of occupational wage growth in Sweden 9. Class and Poverty: Cross-sectional and dynamic analysis of income poverty and lifestyle deprivation 10. Using the ESeC to Describe Socio-economic Inequalities in Health in Europe 11. Unemployment Risks in Four EU countries: A validation study of the ESeC 12. Class of Origin and Educational Inequalities in Contemporary Italy: A validation analysis of the ESeC Part 4: Conclusions 13. ESeC in Retrospect and Prospect: An Epilogue