Assessing the Cross-Sex Validity of the Goldthorpe Class Schema Using Log-linear Models with Latent Variables

Abstract

In this paper we use log-linear models with latent variables to estimate and compare the structure of job characteristics and their relation to positions in the Goldthorpe class schema for male and female employees. We proceed by estimating latent class models of job attributes and then evaluate the degree of similarity in these models between men and women. Sex differences in the patterns of association between the various latent types of job attribute and between those attributes and the Goldthorpe class schema are then assessed. The structure of job attributes is found to be generally similar for men and women; and the Goldthorpe schema is shown to be a similarly effective predictor of these attributes for both sexes. The class structure of employment relations is therefore argued to be equivalent across the sexes, so confirming the generality of class relations as conceptualised by Goldthorpe and his colleagues.