The European Union: A Unified Social Space?
Brousse, Cécile
The European Union: A Unified Social Space? - 2017.
36
Most theories of social stratification adopt the national space as their framework (Wright, Goldthorpe, Esping-Andersen, Bourdieu). While some socio-economic typologies are used for the sake of making international comparisons (as the EGP for instance), they are rarely applied to the European space altogether. This article draws upon the data from the SILC survey and a modified version of the detailed typology of PCS in order to question the possibility of transposing to the European level Bourdieu’s class-based model. It shows that while the distribution of the population among three classes – dominant, intermediate, and lower middle class – according to the volume of capital is a structure found in all European countries, the subdivision of these classes into fractions reflecting the composition of their capital is more pronounced in Western Europe. According to their welfare regimes, countries differ in terms of the distance between social classes, greater in the more inegalitarian countries of southern Europe and more restricted in northern Europe. Yet, differences in terms of income and schooling are such between the different regions of Europe that the country of residence is at least as decisive as the profession for determining social position at the European level. To put it differently, within each country, the social class as defined by the profession remains a strong predictor of the social position. Yet, it is difficult to talk about a unified European social space.
The European Union: A Unified Social Space? - 2017.
36
Most theories of social stratification adopt the national space as their framework (Wright, Goldthorpe, Esping-Andersen, Bourdieu). While some socio-economic typologies are used for the sake of making international comparisons (as the EGP for instance), they are rarely applied to the European space altogether. This article draws upon the data from the SILC survey and a modified version of the detailed typology of PCS in order to question the possibility of transposing to the European level Bourdieu’s class-based model. It shows that while the distribution of the population among three classes – dominant, intermediate, and lower middle class – according to the volume of capital is a structure found in all European countries, the subdivision of these classes into fractions reflecting the composition of their capital is more pronounced in Western Europe. According to their welfare regimes, countries differ in terms of the distance between social classes, greater in the more inegalitarian countries of southern Europe and more restricted in northern Europe. Yet, differences in terms of income and schooling are such between the different regions of Europe that the country of residence is at least as decisive as the profession for determining social position at the European level. To put it differently, within each country, the social class as defined by the profession remains a strong predictor of the social position. Yet, it is difficult to talk about a unified European social space.
Réseaux sociaux