Marxist Class Categories and Income Inequality

Abstract

Marxian class categories have been almost totally ignored in systematic quantitative studies of social stratification and income inequality. Occupational status or a similar variable is almost always used as the core criterion defining the individual's position in the system of stratification. This study provides a preliminary operationalization of the Marxian class categories for use in quantitative research. The three most important of these classes-workers, managers and employers-then are analyzed to see what inter- actions occur between class position and the usual variables used in predicting income (education, occupational status, age and job tenure) and between class and race-sex cate- gories. It was found that there is a substanial interaction between class position and the income returns to education; within class categories, however, there are no differences between race and sex groups in the returns to education