ARE THERE CLASSES IN POST-COMMUNIST SOCIETIES? A NEW APPROACH TO IDENTIFYING CLASS STRUCTURE

Abstract

If class theory has explanatory and descriptive power it should be possible to provide evidence that social classes exist as phenomena generic to modern industrial societies. This paper addresses this issue by examining the structure of class situations, as defined by job attributes, in two central European, post-communist societies – Hungary and Poland – and then comparing them with a benchmark Western society, Britain. Classes are identified through a latent structure analysis of job attributes and by assessing the correspondence between the latent classes estimated through this procedure and positions on two alternative indicators of class position – the Goldthorpe class schema and self-rated class identity. The structure of latent classes is found to be generally similar across all three societies, as is the correspondence between these latent classes and positions in the Goldthorpe schema in the two societies in which it is measured, and class identification. The main exceptions to this shared pattern relate to variations in the size and organisation of the agricultural sector and the distinctiveness of ‘intermediate’ class positions. The evidence indicates the presence of a considerable degree of cross-national consistency in the structure of class situations across diverse social and political contexts.