In general there are 6 social grade categories:
| SES |
Social Status |
Occupation of the Main Income Earner |
| A |
Above Middle Class |
Non-manual occupations, top managers/supervisors, professionals |
| B |
Middle Class |
Non-manual occupations, middle level managers/supervisors, experts |
| C1 |
Below Middle Class |
Non-manual occupations, low level managers, administrative tasks; employees, small business etc. |
| C2 |
Skilled Workers |
Skilled, educated manual workers |
| D |
Unskilled Workers |
Partly skilled or unskilled manual workers |
| E |
Lowest Class |
Non income earners, Long term unemployed, landless farmers |
The table above indicates that the most important factor that differentiate groups A, B and C1 from the others is that manual occupations are not included in these categories.
Most of the non-manual workers belong to group C1. The main income earners in this category, are employees and perform administrative tasks. They are well educated and have complex job descriptions. However, as long as they don't have a great deal of responsibility, qualification and experiences/degrees, they should not be categorized as B. In general, people from C1 work under the supervision/management of people from B.
Group B can be the manager of a department and can have a middle level managerial position in a big organization or can be a general manager of a small organization. Sometimes, people from group A supervise them.
Group A is comprised of top managers and professionals. They have high responsibilities in the decision-making process. Very few people belong to this category and are considered to be very high quality people who are at the peak of their careers.
Manual workers are classified as group C2 and D.
Skilled manual workers belong to group C2. In general, their job requires a special kind of training and/or a certain level of responsibility.
Partly skilled or unskilled workers are classified as group D. Their occupation does not require any special training or qualification and they have very little responsibility.
Group E socio-economic status comprises of people living at the lowest level. They have very little or a non-permanent income or they do not have an income at all. Examples: people who are retired with a very low pension, widows, more than 6 months unemployed, unable to work through illness; seasonal workers.
It is very important to get detailed information about the main income earner's occupation in order to be able to decide on his socio-economic status. To realize this aim the following questions can be asked:
- What is the occupation of the main income earner?
- Is this a part time or full time job?
- Is he/she the owner of the business or is he/she an employee?
- Does he/she have a title?
- Is this a manual occupation?
- What are the qualifications required for this job?
- What does the company do?
- How many employees/workers are there in the company?
- Does he/she have personal responsibilities? How many?
It is not necessary to ask all these questions to the respondents. But as can be seen from the subsequent sections, it is not possible to determine the social economic status of the main income earner only by asking him/her their occupation. Responses such as independent business owner, manager or director are insufficient. Therefore a few more questions should be asked. It can then be possible to determine the appropriate social grade category.
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