INVESTMENT DECK

Socioeconomic Status

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Perception

Oprah Winfrey

Steve Jobs

Halle Berry

Most of us have a sense of a hierarchy in society, from low to high income, wealth, power, culture, behaviour, heritage and prestige. The word "class" appended after terms such as "working," "ruling," "lower" and "upper" is a shorthand way to describe these hierarchical steps.

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How is socioeconomic status measured?

There are three key measures most commonly used to capture socioeconomic status: income, education, and occupation. At a glance, measuring each of these seems pretty straightforward, but issues often arise quickly.

Income

Education

Occupation

Challenges

Socioeconomic challenges are a key barrier to economic progression for people within the workplace

Being fully qualified but earning less

It's who you know, not what you know

Being from working class

Another major problem is that The Equality Act 2010 does not protect employees that suffer from discrimination on the grounds of class or socioeconomic status, unless it overlaps with one of the 9 protected characteristics in the act. It could therefore be argued that social class should be added to the Equality Act 2010 and 9 protected attributes should become 10.