Social Class and Subjective Aspects of Social Inequalities
Social Class and Subjective Aspects of Social Inequalities

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to capture the relationship between the social class and social inequalities, using a subjective positioning, namely a respondent's perspective upon its own position in society, using data collected on a national data set.A subjective approach offers a glance into the manner in which social inequalities are constructed and applied by and on different categories, also creating the context for a discussion related to the reasons and implications of these perceived societal positions.I guide my analysis on two assumptions: 1. that different individuals, belonging to different social classes – measured in an objective way – discern and comprehend in multiple forms the structure of the Romanian society; 2. these individuals self-position themselves according to their perception and to their objective position in the stratification order. The results did not support the first assumption because a large proportion of the individuals from our sample describe and understand the Romanian society as one characterized by important inequalities between people. However,I found evidence for the second, related assumption, as all classes seem to aspire to be part of the middle class and to report that they are closer to that middle class than the objective measures would suggest. This paper aims to capture the relationship between the social class and social inequalities, using a subjective positioning, namely a respondent's perspective upon its own position in society, using data collected on a national data set. A subjective approach offers a glance into the manner in which social inequalities are constructed and applied by and on different categories, also creating the context for a discussion related to the reasons and implications of these perceived societal positions. I guide my analysis on two assumptions: 1. that different individuals, belonging to different social classes – measured in an objective way – discern and comprehend in multiple forms the structure of the Romanian society; 2. these individuals self-position themselves according to their perception and to their objective position in the stratification order. The results did not support the first assumption because a large proportion of the individuals from our sample describe and understand the Romanian society as one characterized by important inequalities between people. However, I found evidence for the second, related assumption, as all classes seem to aspire to be part of the middle class and to report that they are closer to that middle class than the objective measures would suggest.

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