Importance Of Ownership Research Articles

Social Class and Income Returns to Education in Sweden: A Research Note

Two measures of social class (one using the operational criteria developed by Wright; the other based upon the Swedish social group typology) are used to explore the relationships among class, income, and education in Sweden. While the class measures differ in both explanatory power and interpretation, the data show that social class has a significant effect on income in Sweden, that the impact of education on income is dependent on class position, and that some of the income differences between males and females in Sweden can be attributed to social class position. Several recent reports have demonstrated the utility of Marxist class analysis (as compared to approaches based upon measures of status, occupation, income, etc.) in the empirical investigation of inequality in advanced capitalist societies. Marxist empirical researches have stressed the discontinuous nature of social class divisions, the objective assignment of individuals to class positions and the importance of ownership and control in the labor process. This report examines the utility of two such approaches (one using the operational criteria developed by Wright; the other based upon the Swedish social group typology) in explaining the relationships among social class, income and education in Sweden. We expect to show that social class has a significant effect upon income in Sweden, that the impact of education upon income is dependent upon the social class positions which individuals occupy and that some of the income differences between males and females in Sweden can be attributed to social class position.