Socio-economic categorization of households: a new methodological approach in quantitative research

Abstract

The position of individuals in the social hierarchy is recognized as being multidimensional, i.e. defined by various socio-economic factors, both individual (for example: level of education, situation vis-à-vis the job, occupation) that characterize the household (for example: household income). This article presents a description of different forms of categorization and presents a new methodology in quantitative household categorization research based on the calculation of a socio-economic status index for each household. This varies from 0 to 1 and depending on the level of its socio-economic status index, a household may belong to one of the following four (4) socio-economic categories: low socio-economic category (index[0, 0.25[), lower middle socio-economic category (index [0.25, 0.50[), upper middle socio-economic category (index [0.50, 0.75[) and high socio-economic category (index [0.75, 1]).