The importance of socio-economic heterogeneity: A comparative approach grounded in the EGP scheme

Abstract

International comparative studies of social stratification and class mobility are based on class schemes conceived for industrialized countries. The EGP scheme, developed by Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero, has become a standard in the field of social mobility. However, this scheme may not reflect heterogeneities in labor relations that have worsened in recent years as a result of the flexibilization, precarization and pauperization of contracts, where salaried employment and self-employment are segmented into sectors of high and low productivity, with unequal working conditions and wages. The hypothesis that guides our work is the following: the impact of heterogeneity in Latin America is so strong that this dimension must be considered in class analysis. Our alternative hypothesis is that southern European countries are in an intermediate situation between Latin America and early industrialized Europe. We propose an adaptation of the EGP scheme to explain such heterogeneity. For this purpose, we use data from national household surveys conducted in some Latin American countries as well as southern European countries with a view to characterizing their class structures and analyzing the association between class membership and life conditions. The introduction of distinctions in the class scheme is relevant in contexts of high heterogeneity, not in all economic contexts, so it is expected that in societies with greater relative development or vice versa, the social classes are not the same.