Temporality and Class Analysis: A Comparative Study of the Effects of Class Trajectory and

Class Structure on Class Consciousness in Sweden and the United States

Author(s): Erik Olin Wright and Kwang-Yeong Shin
Source: Sociological Theory, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 58-84
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/201914
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 TEMPORALITY AND CLASS ANALYSIS:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF
CLASS TRAJECTORY AND CLASS STRUCTURE ON CLASS
CONSCIOUSNESS IN SWEDEN AND THE UNITED STATES1
ERIK OLIN WRIGHT AND KWANG-YEONG SHIN
Universityof Wisconsin,Madison, Wisconsin

Some of the importantconceptual debates between different approaches to class analysis

can be interpretedas reflecting different ways of linking temporalityto class structure. In
particular, processualconcepts of class can be viewed as linking class to the past whereas
structuralconcepts link class to thefuture. This contrast in the temporalityof class concepts
in turn is groundedin distinctintuitionsabout why class is explanatoryof social conflict and
social change. Processural approaches to class see its explanatorypower as derivingfrom
the way meanings and identities are linked to class via a history of experiences; structural
approaches, in contrast, emphasizethe linkage betweenclass andperceived interestsvia the
objectivepossibilitiesfacing people in differentclass locations. Thispaper tries to integrate
these two temporalities by exploring the ways in which trajectories of class experience
intersect structures of objective possibility in shaping different dimensions of class
consciousness.

STRUCTURALAND PROCESSUAL Structuralapproachestreatclass as a matrix

CONCEPTSOF CLASS
As has often been noted, the concept of class
is one of the most contested in sociology. Not
only are there contending definitions of
specific classes, but there are wildly varying
general approachesto class analysis. In some
instances these differences simply reflect
entirely distinct theoretical projects, where
the same word is being used in completely
different conceptual spaces. But frequently
there is a broadly common theoretical
project-explaining social conflict and social
change, for example-but differing views
about what kind of class concept is needed in
order for class to have explanatorypower.
In this paper, we will investigate two
sharply different general approachesto class
analysis-which we will call structuraland
processualviews of class-both of which are
centrally concerned with explaining social
conflict and social change. While not all class
analysts explicitly identify with one or the
other of these approaches, nevertheless we
believe that the distinctionbetween these two
types of class analysis pervades current
conceptualdebates.
1 We would like to thank Jerry Marwell and Robert
Hauser for helpful comments on the data analysis in an
earlier incarnationof this paper, and Michael Burawoy
for convincing us that the earlier version was completely
wrongheaded.
of relationallydefined empty places filled by
individuals. Positions and people are concep-
tually distinguished: individuals are con-
ceived as moving into and out of these places,
but the places themselves are treated as
definable independentlyof such movements
of people. Wright's (1985) elaborationof an
exploitation-centeredconcept of class rela-
tions would be an example of such a
structural approach.2 Processual views, in
contrast, see classes as constituted by the
lived experiences of people. Classes exist
only insofar as the biographiesof individuals
are organizedin such a way that they share a
set of experiences over time which define
their lives in class terms. E.P. Thompson's
(1968:9) famous definition of class reflects
such a perspective: "class happens when
some men, as a result of common experiences
(inherited or shared), feel and articulatethe
identity of their interests as between them-
selves and as againstthose whose interestsare
different from (and usually opposed to)
theirs". Individuallocation within production
relations may matter as one of the mecha-
nisms that generate such a trajectory of
experiences, but it is not intrinsically more
importantthan forms of community, family
structure,or culture in constitutingindividual
biographiesas classes.
2 Other
examples would include the work of Pou-
lantzas (1975), Carchedi(1977), Cohen (1978).

58 Sociological Theory, 1988, Vol. 6 (Spring:58-84)

TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS
The differencesin these two approachesare
grounded, we believe, in two different
intuitions about what it is that makes class
explanatory of social conflict and social
change. Processual approaches see class as
explanatorybecause of the way it determines
the subjectiveconditionsof conflict, above all
the identities and meanings of the various
actors engaged in conflict. Structural ap-
proaches, in contrast, see the central explan-
atory power of class coming from the way it
determines the objective alternatives facing
different actors, both by determining the
materialinterestsof individualactors, and by
shaping the various resources actors can
collectively deploy in the pursuit of these
material interests. To use the language of
rational actor models, structural theories
centeron explainingthe feasible set of actions
that exist independentlyof the motivationsof
the actors, processual theories on the prefer-
ence orderings of actors themselves. In this
sense, processual theories are rooted in what
can be called agent-centered theories of
action, whereas structuralconcepts of class
deploy relations-centeredapproaches.
Another way of characterizingthis distinc-
tion is in terms of temporality in class
analysis. Processual approaches to class
revolve aroundthe problemof learning, with
how people come to learn to be class-
members with the accompanying identities,
worldviews, life-styles, meanings. At any
given moment, what we have learned is
explainedby the trajectoryof experiencesthat
have accumulatedin our lives.3 This trajec-
tory is both a questionof individualbiography
and collective history. The institutional and
cultural legacies of victories and defeats in
past class strugglesmatterjust as much as the
accumulationof lived events in an individual
biography. The temporalityof class analysis
in processualapproaches,therefore,is primar-
ily backward-looking:class is an embodiment
of the past in the present.
Structuralapproachesto class, in contrast,
revolve around the objective choices facing
actors.4 The feasible set of objective alterna-
3 By "experience" in this context, we do not mean
"raw experience" unmediatedby existing interpretations
and meanings, but experiencesas they become integrated
into subjectivity.
4 The distinction between
analysis based on learning action. By "intentional action" we mean, following
and choosing comes from the insightful analysis of
Bowles and Gintis (1986).
59
tives facing actors within a class structure
defines a range of possible future states that
are available to them. History may matterin
so far as it helps to explain why the class
structure is the way it is, but it is not
conceptually constitutive of the concept of
class itself. The temporalityof class analysis
in structuralapproaches,therefore, is primar-
ily future-looking:class is an embodimentof
possible futures in the present.
Given these temporalitiesimplicit in class
analysis, it is easy to see why the concept of
class consciousness differs between process-
ual and structural approaches. Processual
approachesare preoccupied, above all, with
the problemof identity, structuralapproaches
with the problem of interests. Identity is a
dimension of consciousness rooted in the
past. An identity is a package of meanings,
symbols, and sentimentstied to one's individ-
ual biographyand the way that biographyis
tied to the history of a particularcommunity
or social group. Interests,in contrast,refer to
anticipations about the future.5 To say that
workershave interestsin strugglingfor higher
wages is to say that their welfare in the future
would be improved if they engaged in such
struggles in the present. To speak about
interestsis always to make a claim about the
relationshipbetween futureand presentstates.
If certain workers anticipatebeing capitalists
in the future, then it makes little sense to say
that they have interestsin higher wages; their
interests would be linked to their future
position in the class structureratherthan their
presentone.
These various aspects of processual and
structural approaches to class analysis are
summarized in Table 1. Each of these
approachestends to marginalizeor ignore the
central preoccupationsof the other. Thus, as
Bowles and Gintis (1986:145-150) have
forcefully pointed out, traditional Marxist
structuralconcepts of class tend to treat the
process of how class members acquire the
cultural attributesof class, particularlyclass
identities, as relatively unproblematic.Indi-
viduals are bearersof roles and more or less
automatically express the central subjective
propertiescorrespondingto those roles (or in
functionalist accounts, required by those-
5
Subjective interests refer to the goals of intentional
Elster (1985:8ff), action in which anticipated future
states provide partof the explanationof the action itself.
60
Table 1. Alternative General Approaches to Class
Analysis
Processual Structural
Conditionsof conflict
explained by class subjective objective
Theoryof action agent-centered relation-centered
Centraldimension of
class consciousness identity interests
Temporalityof class past future
roles). The objective conditions tied to
structuralpositions are seen as so powerful
and pervasive that they virtually dictate a set
of interests to actors in those positions. At
most, therefore,the problemof consciousness-
formationbecomes one of asking why actors
often fail to understandthose interests, rather
than asking how the finely texturedpatternof
class subjectivitiesare formed.
Processual views tend to marginalize the
problem of objective relations and con-
straints. The subjective interests held by
actors are treatedas almost entirely a cultural
construct. Interests lack any "objective"
basis: the actions of individuals-in-classesare
to be explainedabove all by theirtrajectoryof
experiences in the past, not by the objective
possibilities facing them for the future.
A MODEL OF TRAJECTORY,
STRUCTUREAND CONSCIOUSNESS
One can imagine special cases in which a
purely structuralaccount of class or a purely
processualaccount would be adequate.If, for
example, the structuralconstraintson action
were so narrowthat the feasible set of choices
was reduced to a single option, then it really
would not mattervery much how classes were
culturally constituted, what identities and
preferences characterized actors in class
positions. Alternatively, if a class structure
was characterized by such high levels of
mobility and openness that every individual
could effectively choose their own class and
thus class membershipwas almost entirely a
matter of the formation of preferences for
particular ways of living, then structural
approaches to class would be of little
explanatorypower.
Real class societies, however, are far from
either of these special cases, and thus class
analysis should attempt to combine the
analytical strategies of processual and struc-
tural approaches. In particular, we need to
bring the two temporalitiesof structuraland
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
processual approaches to class together to
understandhow the trajectoryof experiences
in the past intersectsthe objective possibilities
for the future in explaining the practices and
struggles in the present.6
In this paper we will attempt to link the
temporalities of processual and structural
approachesto class in an empiricalanalysis of
class consciousness. The model will be built
aroundfour basic propositions:
Proposition 1: Basic Structural Proposi-
tion. The subjective awareness of class
interests will be more systematically shaped
by a person's class location than by their
class trajectory.This follows from the central
argumentsof structuralapproaches to class.
Class locations determine the objective class
interests of actors. All things being equal,
therefore, there will be a tendency for
subjective perceptions of interests to be
closely tied to incumbency in a class
location.7A person's class biography-where
they came from, what kinds of class experi-
6
This paperdoes not representthe first attemptto join
these two aspects of class analysis. In a quite different
idiom, Pierre Bourdieu's attemptat developing a theory
of class position and class habitus and can be viewed
trying to join structuraland processual aspects of class
(see Bourdieu, 1985). The approachwe are pursuinghere
differs from Bourdieu's in two principle respects: first,
Bourdieuplaces explanatoryemphasis on the concept of
class habituswhereas, if anything, we assign explanatory
primacy to structural concepts of class. Secondly,
Bourdieu's concept of class is framed in terms of the
social constructionof interest-basedgroups in general;
there is no necessarycontent to those interestsat all, and
certainly no restriction of "class" interests to material
exploitation. Our usage of class will follow more
traditional Marxian lines of identifying the concept
specifically with exploitationand materialinterests.For a
discussion of Bourdieu's work in these terms, see
Brubaker(1985).
7 The claim that the
objective interests determinedby
class structuresare tied to class locations of incumbents
is contingent upon the time horizons of movements of
individuals into and out of class locations. At one
extreme is a class structurein which the incumbentsof
given class locations and their childrenstay in those class
locations permanently;at the other extreme is a structure
in which incumbents have a very high probability of
being able to move into different locations at will. The
objective interest tied to locations are different in these
two structures even if the description of the "empty
places" themselves is identical. Interests are always
claims about desired states in the future (since they take
time to accomplish), and therefore if one's future class
location is likely to be different from one's present
location, one's present interests are affected. At a
minimum, therefore, high rates of individual mobility
generate some uncertainty or indeterminacy in the
relationshipbetween locations and interests.
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS
ences they have had in the past-should
matterfor individual's subjective understand-
ing of class interestsonly to the extent that it
gives incumbentsof class positions a clearer
perceptionof their class interests.
Proposition 2: Basic Processual Proposi-
tion. The subjectiveclass identityof individu-
als will be more systematically shaped by
their class trajectory than by their class
location. Identitiesare formedover time; they
are learned. Whethera given individualhas a
workingclass identity will depend more upon
their entire biography of class-based experi-
ences than simply upon their currentlocation
within the class structure.
Proposition 3: Interaction of processual
and structuraldimensions of class. The class
identityof people will have an effect on their
perception of their class interests net of the
effect of their currentlocation within the class
structure. Class structures define a set of
objective interests of incumbents in class
locations and this, in and of itself, creates a
tendency for subjective perceptions of inter-
ests to vary by class location (Proposition1).
Subjective perceptionsof interests, however,
are never a simple, unmediatedreflection of
"raw sense data", and, if processualtheorists
of class are correct, one of the central
determinantsof how people understandtheir
interestsis their identity. It is thereforeto be
expected that identity will shape perceptions
of interests even after controlling for the
individual's class location.
Proposition 4: Class Formation Proposi-
tion. The strength of the relationships at the
micro-levelbetweenclass location and subjec-
tive class interests and between class trajec-
tory and class identity will vary with the
degree of the collective formation of classes.
Proposition 1-3 are all micro propositionsin
that each is a claim about how some attribute
or state of individuals generates tendencies
for particular forms of consciousness to
CLASS TRAJECTORY > SUBJECTIVE CLASS IDENTITY
I
CLASS FORMATION
CLASS LOCATION
J V
Figure 1. Basic Causal Model
61
emerge within individuals. Such tendencies,
however, are mediated by the macro-
historical context within which these micro-
processes take place. Under historical condi-
tions of class formationin which classes are
highly organized economically and politi-
cally, it would be expected that these micro
tendencies would be much stronger than
under conditions in which class formations
were highly atomized and fragmented. The
"efficiency" with which a particular class
location at the micro-level generates subjec-
tive perceptionsof correspondingclass inter-
ests, or a given class trajectory generates
particular class identities, therefore, will
increase as the collective institutionsof class
formationare stronger.If we were to compare
a country with relatively weak and disorga-
nized forms of working class formation
(such as the United States) with a country
with relatively strong forms of working class
formation (such as Sweden), we would
therefore expect the correlations posited in
propositions 1-3 to be weaker in the former
than in the latter.
Taking these four propositionstogether we
get the simple causal model presented in
Figure 1. This model will form the basis of
the empirical investigation in this paper of
class location, class trajectory and class
consciousness in Sweden and the United
States.
ELABORATIONOF BASIC CONCEPTS
AND OPERATIONALIZATIONS
Class Structure
Different theoretical agendas yield different
kinds of structuralmaps of classes. Over-
whelmingly, sociologists who study class
have taken "occupation" as the central
category for this structuralmap of positions.
Of course, there are thousands of distinct
>
> SUBJECTIVE CLASS INTERESTS
62
occupationsin any society, and thus the initial
task is one of aggregatingthese occupations
into some manageableand theoreticallymean-
ingful set of researchable categories. Typi-
cally this is done more or less througha logic
of the relative "status" of the occupations,
generatingthe traditionaloccupationalclassi-
fication scheme: lower manual, upper man-
ual, lower white collar, upper white collar.
Needless to say, there are many variations
and nuances on this basic theme, some more
complex than others, but most empirical
studies of class operate along this kind of
logic.
In this paper we will adopt a different
underlyinglogic for the structuralcategories,
one rooted in Marxianconcepts of class rather
than status. The basic distinctionbetween the
two conceptual stances is this: status-based
concepts distinguish among positions on the
basis of the culturalevaluationsof the relative
desirabilityof positions, where "desirability"
is usually an amalgam of a variety of valued
attributes;class-based concepts, on the other
hand, attemptto distinguish among positions
on the basis of the fundamental material
interestsobjectively tied to positions. The two
approaches, of course, are not empirically
unrelated, since one of the values which
makes positions desirable is precisely the
income and power typically associated with
them. There will therefore be a reasonable
correlation between status typologies of
positions and class typologies. Nevertheless,
the underlying criteria and rationales are
distinct.
Depending upon one's general theory of
society and the empirical objectives of
research, status-basedor class-based concepts
of structural positions may be the more
appropriate.If one is ultimately interestedin
understanding social conflict and social
change, and one believes that both conflict
and change are fundamentallystructuredby
materialinterests, then some variantof a class
typology is probablythe most useful. If one is
primarily interesting in understandingsuch
things as self-esteem, and one believes that
esteem is fundamentally structured by the
normative evaluations of others, than status-
based typologies of positions may be more
relevant. In any case, throughoutthis paper
we will adopt a variantof the Marxistconcept
of class for our structuralmap of positions.
The specific concept we will use is based
on the recent work of Wright (1985).
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
The basic class typology we will use has
four categories:Capitalists,petty bourgeoisie,
"middle class" wage earners and workers.
Since a detailed defense of these categories is
available elsewhere (Wright, 1985; chapter
3), we will only provide a brief rationale
here.
The most problematic category in this
typology is the third, "middle class wage-
earners."Indeed, as has often been noted, the
problem of the middle class has always been
rather troublesome within Marxist theory.
How can a conceptual framework built
around a polarized concept of relationally
defined classes accommodatecategories that
are in the "middle"?What does it mean to be
in the middle of a relation?
Many solutions to this problem have been
proposed in recent years. We will adopt a
solution based on the idea that certain kinds
of locations can be considered in the
"middle"in so far as they share the relational
properties of more than one class. They
occupy what Wrighthas called "contradictory
locations within class relations." More specif-
ically, in capitalist societies it is possible to
define a range of positions which are
simultaneously exploited by capitalists and
yet are exploiters along some secondary
dimension of class relations.8Such positions,
for convenience, we shall call the "middle
class".9
There are two primary mechanisms for
such secondary exploitation: control over
what Wright has called organizationalassets
and control over credentials (or "inalienable
assets"). The first of these defines the
distinctive form of exploitation linked to
managerial positions within the social rela-
tions of production,the second to the form of
exploitationtied to professionaland technical
8
The concept of "exploitation" is a complex and
contested concept in contemporaryMarxism. The basic
idea is that occupying certain kinds of positions within
the social relationsof productionenables people to make
claims on the social surplus though various kinds of
mechanisms. Because there are multiple mechanisms of
exploitation tied to different aspects of production
relations, it is possible for people to be exploited by one
mechanismand yet be exploiters by another. See Wright
(1985:64-92).
9 Strictly speaking these positions should be referred
by the more cumbersome expression "contradictory
exploitationlocations within class relations".The use of
the common language term to designate such positions
should not be interpretedas suggesting a conceptualshift
towards a gradationalperspectiveon class structure.
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS
positions.10The "middle class" then, will be
defined as all wage earnerswho eitheroccupy
managerial positions within the authority
structure of their place of work or have
professional, technical or managerial oc-
cupations.1 All other wage earners will be
considered working class. The working class
thus includes nonsupervisory manual wage
earners and routinized white collar and
service workers.
Class Structure:operationalization
The formaloperationalizationof these catego-
ries is presentedin Table 2. The details of the
operationalizationsused for this analysis are
given in Wright (1985: 226, Table 6.13).12
Several comments on this operationalization
are needed. First, the criterion we use to
define position within authorityhierarchiesis
whether or not the respondent's job is
formally included in the managerial/supervi-
sory hierarchy. In other research by Wright
on class structure, position within authority
hierarchieswas measuredby personalinvolve-
ment in decisionmaking responsibilities and
direct control over the activities of others.
These more subtle measures, however, were
not available for the class trajectoryvariable
in this analysis. We therefore had to choose
between having parallel constructionsfor the
class location and class trajectory variables
(but sacrificingsome measurementquality for
the class location variable), c. _,ving asym-
metricalmeasuresfor the two variables. Since
O1It should be noted that this formulationincorporates
into a Marxistclass concept one of the durableinsights of
the Weberian tradition of class analysis-that the
ownership of skills can, under appropriateconditions,
constitutethe basis for a class division between workers
and the "middle class." For a discussion of the
relationshipbetween the traditionalWeberianformulation
of this issue and the one adopted here, see Wright
(1985:106-108).
11It is
important to note the distinction between
occupying a managerial position in the authority
hierarchy and having a managerial occupation. While
most people in managerial occupations also occupy
managerial positions (about 85% of occupationally
defined managers are also positionally defined as
managers in the United States), the reverse is not true:
most people in managerialpositions are not in occupa-
tions that are called "manager". In any case, in the
present analysis since both of these categories are being
fused into a general "middle class" category, the
distinctionwill not matterfor our empiricalinvestigation.
12 The variable we will use collapses categories 3, 4
and 5 from table 6.13 in Wright (1985:226) into the
middle class.
63
much of the theoreticalthrustof the analysis
revolves around comparing the effects of
class trajectory and class location on class
consciousness, we decided that the most
appropriate strategy was to measure both
variables at comparablelevels of conceptual
precision. It is for this reason that authority
position is being measuredby formalposition
ratherthan substantivepowers.13
Second, the credential/skillasset dimension
of the class concept is being measured by
occupation, rather than directly by educa-
tional credential.The rationalefor this is that
a person's actual class position should be
defined by assets that are actively deployed in
production, not latent assets. Capitalists do
not simply own a pot of money; they own
capital deployed in capitalist production. A
person with a PhD driving a taxicab,
therefore,will not be consideredthe owner of
an exploitative asset, even though potentially
such a person could become an exploiter by
obtaininga "middle class" job.14
Finally, we are aggregating all of the
diverse "contradictorylocations" that would
be formed by combinations of authority
position and credentialled occupation into a
single, ratherheterogeneous "middle class".
We do this for two reasons. First, because of
limitations of sample size it would be
impossible to explore the various types of
detailedtrajectoriesamongcontradictoryloca-
tions. And second, our central theoretical
interest is with the working class-with the
effects of working class locations and work-
ing class trajectorieson class consciousness-
not with the various distinctions within the
nonworking class locations in the class
structure.
13 None of the substantive
conclusions we make are
affected by the use of this somewhatweakercriterionfor
authority.
14 We are
opting, in effect, for what could be termeda
behavioral criterion for class membership-what a
person actually does-rather than a modal definition-
what a person could do if they optimized their material
interests. Jon Elster (1985:319ff) has argued in favor of
modal definitions, saying that it makes no sense to treata
Rockefeller who freely chooses to work in a factory as
thereby in the working class. Class membership is
defined by constraints,not acts of will (unless, of course,
a particular act of will is irreversible and therefore
imposes appropriateconstraints). The operationalprob-
lems in modal definitionsof class, however, make it very
difficult to use in empirical research. In any case, for
practicalpurposes, the behavioralclass and modal class
of most people are probablythe same.
64
Table 2. OperationalCriteriafor Classes
Self-
CLASS CATEGORY employed
CAPITALISTS YES
PETTY BOURGEOISIE YES
"MIDDLE"CLASS NO
WORKINGCLASS NO
a
Occupying a managerial or supervisory authority position is operationalizedby responses to the following
question: "Which of the following best describes the position which you hold within your business or organization?
Would it be a managerialposition, a supervisoryposition or a nonmanagementposition?".
Class Trajectory
Ideally, to measurefully class trajectorieswe
would need complete class biographies of
individuals, biographieswhich would include
data on the class characterof such things as:
the individual's family of origin, the various
communities the individual has lived in, the
class characterof the individual's schooling
experiences, all previous jobs and the length
of time within each and a range of other
class-pertinent experiences (unemployment,
strikes, etc.). This complex, multidimen-
sional space of class experiences over time
could then be collapsed into a smallernumber
of theoreticallycoherent types of lives (lives
completely embedded in the working class;
lives which move back and forth between the
working class and the petty bourgeoisie;lives
with increasing distance from the working
class; etc.).
We do not have this kind of comprehensive
data on the class dimensions of biographies
and experiences. What we do have are data
on class origins and currentclass locations.
These data enable us to create a simple class
mobility matrix. Our strategy,then, will be to
use the cells in this origins-destinationsclass
mobility matrix as a first approximationmap
of possible class trajectories.
Advocates of processual theories of class
may object thatthis is an inappropriateway of
specifying a processual view of trajectories
for two reasons. First it does not directly
measure "lived experiences" as such, but
simply the structural context within which
such experiences occur. In order to treat a
class mobility trajectoryas a variablereflect-
ing a processual approachto class analysis,
we have to assume that particularbiographi-
cal movements throughthe class structureare
closely tied to a trajectory of actual class
experiences. Treatingthe link between struc-
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
Occupies a managerialor supervisory
authorityposition and/or
occupationis classified as manager,
Has professionalor technician
employees (1970 Census categories)a
YES
NO
NO YES
NO NO
ture and experience as unproblematic, it
could be argued, is precisely what processual
theorists object to in structuralapproaches.
Second, mobility trajectorytaps a relatively
limited aspect of overall class trajectory-the
link between class origins and destinations-
rather than the broad inventory of class
constituting processes discussed by process-
ual theorists. Even aside from the problemof
the relationshipbetween a structuralbiogra-
phy and a trajectory of experiences, a
mobility trajectorymay be too thin a basis for
tappingprocessualapproachesto class analy-
sis.
These are pertinent objections and they
should be kept in mind as we explore the
results of the empirical investigation. Never-
theless, we feel that class mobility trajectories
are a sufficiently salient aspect of overall
class trajectoriesthat they are an appropriate
preliminaryway of empirically mapping this
conceptual space. And we believe that the
experienceslinked to mobility are sufficiently
consistent that it is reasonableto interpretthe
empirical effects of mobility patterns as
reflecting the kinds of experiential mecha-
nisms postulated within processual views of
class. In any case, with the presentdata these
are the best measures of class trajectorywe
have.
Using a mobility matrix to measure class
trajectoryin this way, it should be noted, is
quite different from the use of such matrices
in the conventional study of "mobility
effects". In mobility effects research the
typical analytical strategy is to begin by
examining the additive model in which social
origins and destinationsare used to predictthe
outcome in question. Only after this model
has been specified are the effects of "mo-
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS
bility" as such, understoodas the interactions
of origins and destinations, included in the
analysis.15 In the conventional wisdom,
origins and destinationsare treatedas having
a logical priority over mobility patterns(i.e.
the patterns which link origins and destina-
tions) in the analysis. Indeed, mobility effects
are treatedas a kind of residual-that part of
the consequences of origins and destinations
that cannot be attributedeither to origins or
destinations as such. For the purposes of
defining class trajectories in our analysis,
however, origins and destinationsare simply
our best available way of distinguishing
different types of lives in class terms; the
additive model of origins and destinationsis
not analytically privileged over an "inter-
active" model.
To illustratethis logic, consider the simple
mobility matrix in Table 3. Sixteen different
kinds of biographicaltrajectoriesare defined
in this matrix. Rather that treating these as
interactions between two variables-origins
and destinations-the cells in this table can be
viewed as values in a single 16-category
typological variableof class trajectories.
If we had sufficient data we could, of
course, deploy this entire 16-categorytypol-
ogy in the form of 15 dummy variablesin an
analysis of trajectoryeffects. This would not,
however, in general be the most interesting
strategy theoretically, since not all of the
distinctions among these cells are of equal
theoreticalinterest. An alternative,therefore,
is to collapse the cells of this typology in a
variety of different ways depending upon
one's theoretical and empirical objectives.
Some of the possibilities are illustrated in
Table 4.
These models should be read as follows.
Cells which are assigned the same numberare
treated as equivalent. The ordering of the
15 Good
examples of this kind of logic would include
Duncan (1966), Knocke (1973), Jackman(1972). Much
researchon the effects of mobility, particularlyresearch
before the late 1960s, did not consistently distinguish
between the additive effects of origins and destinations
on an outcome of interestand interactiveeffects as such.
Thus, for example, the observationthat mobile individu-
als have ideologies intermediarybetween the ideologies
of immobile individualsof lower and higher statuses has
been taken to indicate that mobility matters (e.g.,
Thompson, 1971), whereas in fact this is the result one
would expect if origins and destinations simply affect
ideology in an additive manner.See Knocke (1973) for a
clear exposition of the differentlogics of the additiveand
interactivemodels.
65
Table 3. Possible Biographical Trajectories in Class
Mobility Matrix
CLASS DESTINATION
CLASS Petty Middle Working
ORIGINS CapitalistsBourgeois Class Class
Capitalists 1 2 3 4
Petty Bourgeoisie 5 6 7 8
Middle Class 9 10 11 12
WorkingClass 13 14 15 16
numbers has no inherent significance--they
designate qualitatively distinct types, not an
ordinal ranking. Where all the cells of the
table are assigned only two numbers as in
models C and D, this implies that the original
16 value typological variable is being col-
lapsed into a single dichotomousvariable.
Models A and B in Table 4 representthe
simple class origins model and currentclass
location (or "destinations")model. By col-
lapsing the full typology along the rows in
Model A we say, in effect, that in class
biographiesall that mattersis origins; for any
given origin, all destinations are equivalent.
Model B, on the other hand, collapses the
table along the columns, implyingthat all that
mattersis where you end up.
Models C through G represent different
kinds of class trajectorymodels. C and D are
the simplest, each distinguishing only two
kinds of lives. In Model C all people who
have lived their entire lives in what could be
termed the "privileged classes"-capitalists
among owning classes and the "middleclass"
among wage-earning classes-are distin-
guished from everyone else; in Model D,
people who have lived theirentire lives in the
"popularclasses"-the petty bourgeoisie and
the working class-are distinguished from
people whose lives have touched privilege at
some time. Models E and F, then, combine
Models C and D in different ways: Model E
distinguishes a life of privilege (1), a life
entirelyin popularclasses (3) and a mixed life
(2); Model F differentiatesthis mixed cate-
gory into an "upward"(popularto privileged)
and "downward" (privileged to popular)
component. Finally, Model G collapses the
various "immobile"categories-the diagonal
of the original mobility matrix-into a single
category. The result is a conventional up-
ward, downward, stable classification of
mobility experiences. Each of these models,
therefore, can be viewed as a theoretical
hypothesis about what kinds of biographies
66 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
Table 4. Examples Aggregationsof Full BiographicalTrajectoryTypology

C = Capitalists;P = Petty Bourgeoisie; M = Middle Class wage earners;W = Workingclass

A. Origins Model B. Currentlocation model
DESTINATIONS DESTINATIONS
C P M W C P M W
C 1 1 1 1 C 1 2 3 4
ORIGINS P 2 2 2 2 ORIGINS P 1 2 3 4
M 3 3 3 3 M 1 2 3 4
W 4 4 4 4 W 1 2 3 4

C. Privilege Model D. UnderprivilegedModel

DESTINATIONS DESTINATIONS
C P M W C P M W
C 1 2 1 2 C 1 1 1 1
ORIGINS P 2 2 2 2 ORIGINS P 1 2 1 2
M 1 2 1 2 M 1 1 1 1
W 2 2 2 2 W 1 2 1 2
1 = entire life privileged owner (C) or 1 = trajectorytouches privileged
privileged wage-earner(M) (C or M)
2 = trajectorytouches popularclasses (P, W) 2 = entire life i n popularclasses (P or W)

E. Privilege, Underprivilege,Mover Model F. Privilege, Underprivilege,Upward, DownwardModel

DESTINATIONS DESTINATIONS
C P M W C P M W
C 1 2 1 2 C 1 3 1 3
ORIGINS P 2 3 2 3 ORIGINS P 2 4 2 4
M 2 1 2 M 1 3 1 3
W 2 3 2 3 W 2 4 2 4
1 = always in privileged classes 1 = always in privileged classes
2 = mixed trajectory 2 = mobile into privilege
3 = always in popularclasses 3 = mobile into popularclasses
4 = always in popularclasses

G. Upward, Downward Model

DESTINATIONS
C P M W
C 1 3 3 3
ORIGINS P 2 1 2 3 I = immobile
M 2 3 1 3 2 = upward
W 2 2 2 1 3 = downward
Note: these models assume that movement between middle class wage earners and the petty bourgeoisie is
downwardmobility.

should be treatedas essentially equivalentand both trajectoryand location simultaneouslyin

what kinds should be distinguished.
It is importantto note that the concepts of
class trajectoryand currentclass location are
not logically independent: class location
provides one of the pieces of data used to
construct the class trajectory variable. The
contrast between "Trajectory" and "Lo-
cation" is therefore not equivalent to the
distinction between the "past" and the
"present"; trajectory is meant to capture a
persons entire biography, which includes the
present location. In the data analysis, there-
fore, it does not make much sense to include
a multivariateequation.16 When we compare
the explanatory power of trajectory and
location in propositions1 and 2, therefore,we
will not examine their relative explanatory
power within a multivariateequationcontain-
16
This is not a problem of multicollinearity, but of
logical construction. Imagine that you created a four
category race by sex typology. It would be mathemati-
cally senseless to include this typology in a regression(in
the form of three dummy variables) along with sex or
race. The categories in the trajectorymodels are like the
categories in the race-sex typology.
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS 67

ing both variables, but their individual about working class consciousness is to make
explanatorypowers in separateequations. the claim that many of the ideas, beliefs,
values and perceptions that comprise con-
sciousness may have a distinctively working
Class Trajectory:operationalization class characterto them.18
The class origins variable in the models in We will examine two aspects of the class
Table 4 are operationalizedthrougha series of content of consciousness: subjective class
questions about the work of the person "who identity, and attitudestowardsthe interestsof
provided most of the financial support for workers and capitalists. As we have argued,
your family while you were growing up". these two dimensions of consciousness have
These questions were not pegged to a specific very differenttemporalstructuresto them and
age of the respondent,but to the typical work thus are likely to be relatedto the problemof
of the head of householdwhile the respondent biographicaltrajectoriesand class locations in
was growing up. The actual criteria are the quite differentways.
same as for the respondent's own class Class identity refers to the ways in which
location in Table 2. people consider themselves "members" of
differentclasses.19As such, it constitutesone
of many ways in which people define what is
Class Consciousness salient about their lives and what differenti-
Class consciousness is at least as contested a ates them from others. "Identity"has both a
concept as class structure.Some Marxists, in cognitive and affective component. Cogniti-
fact, have argued that the concept does not vely, identity simply defines the ways people
even refer to the empirical attitudesof actual place themselves into different systems of
workers,but ratherto the latentconsciousness formal classification. Affectively, identity
implicit in patterns of collective action.17If refers to the kinds of classifications that are
one adopts this stance towards the concept, subjectively salient in a person's system of
then it is hardly appropriateto describe the meanings. This affective aspect of "identity"
empirical objectives of this paper as the is formed throughthe individual's biography
investigation of the effects of class structure of experiences in communities and social
and class trajectoryon class consciousness. interactionswithin which particularidentities
We will adoptwhat can be termeda "thin" are culturally salient. It is because meanings
concept of class consciousness. We will not are not formed and reformedinstantaneously
make assumptions about what is "true" or as a person moves into new class locations
"false" consciousness, but ratheruse the term that class identity can be viewed as a
to refer to those aspects of a person's "backward-looking"concept: it is rooted in
consciousness which have an identifiable one's personalhistory.
class content. By "consciousness" we mean Consciousness structuredaround interests,
those aspects of the mental life of people on the other hand, can be thought of as
which are discursively accessible to the "forward-looking".When Marxists say that
individual'sown awareness. Consciousnessis workers have particular class interest, the
thus counterposed to "unconsciousness"-- presumptionis that the individuals involved
discursively inaccessible aspects of mental are likely to remain workers sufficiently long
life. The elements of consciousness-ideas, so that their individual interests can be
perceptions, beliefs, values-may not, of identified with their positions as workers. If a
course, be continually present in one's particular worker knows that he or she is
awareness, but they must be accessible to that likely to exit the working class in the near
awarenessto count as elements of conscious- future-for example, if they are the children
ness. of wealthy parents and know that they will
In these terms, then, we can talk about the
class characterof consciousness by examining
the class content of the various elements of
18
consciousness, and perhaps even the class See Wright(1985:242-250) for a furtherelaboration
character of gestalts of elements. To talk of this conceptualizationof class consciousness.
'9 Subjective class identity is perhaps the aspect of
class consciousness most studied by sociologists. For a
17
For a classic statementof this position, see Lukacs recent comprehensivediscussion of the problemof class
(1971 [1922]). For a more recent argumentalong similar identity, see Jackmanand Jackman(1983). The classic
lines, see Bertell Ollman (1986). early study on class identity is by Centers (1949).
68 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
inherit substantial funds, or if they are 2 = spontaneous workingclass identification
a
attending university and are confident that 1 = forcedchoiceworkingclassidentification
they will get "middle class" jobs upon 0 = no class identityeven when asked to
choose
graduation-then their individual interests -1 = forced choice nonworkingclass identifi-
will be only weakly tied to their currentclass
cation
position. Consciousness of class interests, -2 = spontaneous nonworking classidentifica-
therefore, is oriented towards the future tion
reflectingthe time horizons in terms of which
individuals understand their relationship to We will also analyze workingclass identityas
the class structure. a dichotomousvariable, referredto as simple
workingclass identity, in which 1 = working
class identification (values 1 and 2 in the
Subjectiveclass identity:operationalization working class identity index) and 0 = all
In principle, one would want to know two others.
things about an individual's identity with re-
spect to class: first, how importantor salient Class interest consciousness:
class identitywas to the personrelativeto other
operationalization.
possible identities-ethnic, national, reli-
gious, sexual, etc.; and second, with which A number of Likert-type attitude items on
class the individualidentifies. People may say the survey deal directly or indirectlywith the
that they are in the working class, but class problemof class interests:
identity may have no salience at all to them; 1. Corporations benefitownersat the expense
their identity as Catholics, Irish, football fans
of workersandconsumers(do you strongly
or men may matter more to them than their
agree,somewhatagree,somewhatdisagree,
identityas workers.A full analysisof identity- stronglydisagree).
formation, therefore, has to contend with the 2. During a strike, managementshould be
issue of salience as well as class content. prohibitedby lawfromhiringworkersto take
The data we will be using does not allow the placeof strikers.
for a nuanced treatment of the problem of 3. If given the chance, the nonmanagement
salience. No questions are asked which get at employeesat theplacewereyou workcould
the relative importanceof class compared to runthingseffectivelywithoutbosses.
other possible sources of identity. There is, 4. Big corporations havefartoo muchpowerin
American/Swedish Societytoday.
however, a weaker indicatorof salience in the 5. It is possiblefor a modemsociety to run
survey. Before asking respondents in which effectivelywithoutthe profitmotive.
social class they would place themselves,
they were asked whether or not they thought In addition there was one item which dealt
of themselves as belonging to a social class. with attitudestowardsoutcomes of strikes:
If they responded "yes," they were asked to 6. Imaginethatworkersin a majorindustryare
name the class. If they answered "no", they out on strikeover workingconditionsand
were asked the following: "Many people say wages. Which of the following outcomes
they belong to the working class, the middle wouldyou like to see occur:
class or the uppermiddle class. If you had to 1. The workerswin their most important
make a choice, which class would you say demands.
you belonged to?" We are thus able to 2. the workerswin some of theirdemands
distinguish between people who spontane- andmakesomeconcessions.
that are in the working class 3. the workerswin only a few of their
ously say they demands andmakemajorconcessions.
from people who only say that they are in the
into 4. the workersgo back to work without
working class after being prodded winninganyof theirdemands.
making a choice. If we assume that the
spontaneous response indicates greater sa- These questions were then used to construct
lience of class identitythan the forced choice, two working class interest scales based on
then this enables us to create a working class alternativestrategiesof aggregation:
identityvariablewhich taps both the cognitive 1. Additive scale: Of these six items,
and affective aspects of identity. We will numbers1, 2 and 6 are the most explicitly and
refer to this variable as working class salient narrowlyconcernedwith perceptionsof class
identity. It has the following values: interests. We therefore constructeda simple
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS
additive scale restrictedto these items. Each
item was coded 1 for a proworking class
interestresponse (strongly agree or somewhat
agree on the Likert items and response
category 1 on the strike outcome question),
- 1 for a nonworkingclass interest response
(somewhat or strongly disagree on the Likert
items and response categories 3 and 4 on the
strike outcome question), and 0 for a
class-neutral response (don't know on the
Likert items and response category 2 on the
strike outcome question). These items were
then summedto form a scale in which + 3 =
pure proworkingclass interest consciousness
and -3 = pure antiworking class interest
consciousness.
2. Factor Scale: In addition to the simple
additive scale, we aggregated all six items
into a scale on the basis of factor loadings on
a principle components factor analysis. Each
Likert item was code 1-5, with 3 = don't
know. A factor analysis was then conducted
on the six items, and they were aggregated
according to the factor weights on the
principle component. The factor loadings are
given in Table 5.
FORMALIZATIONOF HYPOTHESES
The four proposition laid out earlier can be
Table 5. PrincipalComponentsFactorAnalysis of Class
InterestItems
QuestionnaireItems
1. Corporatebenefit owners at the
expense of workers and consumers.
2. Big corporationshas far too much
power in a society today.
3. It is possible for a modem society
to run effectively without the
profit motive.
4. I given the chance, the nonmanagement
employees at the place where you work
could run things effectively
without bosses.
5. Workersin a major industryare out
on strike over working conditions and
wages. Preferencesfor outcome.
6. During a strike, managementshould be
prohibitedby law from hiring workers
to take the place of strikers.
(N= 2181)b
Eigen-Value
Percent of VarianceExplained
a There are two principle differences be-
The class interest scale is constructed from the
loadings on this factor.
b
This factor analysis was done on the merged US and
Swedish sample.
69
reformulatedas specific hypotheses about the
relationshipsamong the operationalizedvari-
ables we have just defined. These hypotheses
will guide the statisticalanalysis of this paper:
Hypothesis 1. Class location will explain more
of the variance in the values of
the working class interest scales
than will class trajectory.
Hypothesis 2. Class trajectory will explain
more of the variance in working
class identity than will class
location.
Hypothesis 3. Controllingfor the direct effects
of class location, WorkingClass
Identity will still be significantly
related to the working class
interest scales.
Hypothesis 4. All of the effects in Hypotheses
1-3 should be stronger in Swe-
den than in the United States.
DATA AND METHODS
Data
The data we will use come from the Swedish
and United States surveys of the Comparative
Project on Class Structure and Class Con-
sciousness (see Wright, 1982). These are both
nationaland randomsamples of adults in the
labor force conducted in 1980. The total US
employed labor force sample is 1498 and the
Factor Swedish sample 1145. Details of the samples
Loadings are given in Wright (1985:159-161). The
(Varimax analysis in this paper will exclude all
Rotation)a
nonemployed respondents (i.e. unemployed
people in the labor force and housewives).
.65124
.56999 Statistical Procedures
The class trajectoriesin the various models in
.47851
Table 4 are operationalized as a series of
dummy variables, one for each of the groups
of cells distinguishedin the models. In those
.46712
analyses in which the consciousness variable
is continuous-the analysis of salient working
.45089 class identity and the working class interest
scales-standard OLS multiple regression
will be used. For the analysis of simple
.36873
working class identity, where the dependent
variableis a dichotomy, formal model testing
1.53572
25.6 will rely on logistic regressions.
tween logistic regressions and normal regres-
sions that should be noted for readers
unfamiliarwith the technique. First, while as
70
in ordinarylinear regressions the coefficients
in logistic regressionscan be used to indicate
the strength of the relationship between
independent and dependent variables, the
technical interpretationof the coefficients in
logistic regressionsis different. Insteadof the
value of such coefficients indicting the
number of units change in the dependent
variable expected for a single unit change in
the independent variable, they indicate the
change in the log of the odds of scoring a 1 on
the dependentvariablefor a unit change in the
independent variable. In more technical
terms, the functional form of logistic regres-
sion is: L = log(p/l-p) = a + biXi, where
the X, are the independentvariables,the bi are
the regression coefficients of these variables,
p is the probabilityof identifying oneself in
the working class and the expression p/(l-p)
in the dependentvariable is the odds ratio of
identifying with the working class. The bi
coefficients of the independent variables,
then, tell you how much log(p/l-p) increases
for each unit increase in the independent
variables.
The second difference between logits and
standardregressions is that in logits there is
no statisticexactly comparableto R2 to use as
a measure of goodness of fit for alternative
models. Instead, the relative goodness of fit
of differentmodels is tested by examiningthe
improvementsin what is called the "scaled
deviance" of the model. Since the scaled
deviance has an asymptotic chi-squaredistri-
bution, it is straightforwardto test whether a
model is improved when additionalindepen-
dent variables are added by seeing if the
difference in the scaled deviances in the two
models is significant given the differences in
the degrees of freedom of the two models.
One final technical note: when all of the
independentvariables in a logistic regression
are categorical, then the regressions can be
run either as conventional individual-level
regressions or as what is called "grouped"
logit regressions. In a grouped logit, the
statistical analysis is performeddirectly on a
frequency table rather than on individual
observations. The degrees of freedom in a
groupedlogit, therefore,reflect the numberof
cells in the table rather than the number of
cases in the sample. The substantiveresultsof
the two analyses are identical: in both cases
there will be the same best fitting model and
the patterns of coefficients in these models
will be the same. The grouped logit,
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
however, is somewhat easier to run and thus
in the data analyses which follow all of the
results will be from this kind of logistic
regression.
Formatfor Presentationof Results
Most of the independent variables in the
equations we are calculating are structural
typologies, generally with four categories
(four class locations, four class origins, four
class trajectories). The coefficients of the
dummy variables representingthese typolo-
gies in these equations will be presented in
the form of a triangularmatrixin which each
dummy variable is contrastedwith all of the
others. With four dummy variables, there are
therefore six possible contrasts. These six
contrasts are estimated from three different
regressionequationswith different "left out"
categories. The R2s for these three equations,
of course, are identical. Presenting the
dummy variable coefficients in this way
allows the reader to evaluate all of the
possible differences among the structural
categories in the typology.
Weights
For reasons which are not entirely clear, the
overall U.S. survey contains a disproportion-
ate numberof respondentswith high levels of
education and high occupational status. To
correct for this overrepresentationwe have
applied a set of post hoc weights to the US
sample which have the effect of reproducing
the 1980 Census occupation-by-education
distributionsin the sample. The weights are
designed in such a way that they do not alter
the number of cases in the analyses. These
weights will be used throughoutthis analysis.
In no instance do they change the results in
ways which would substantively alter the
interpretationof the findings. No weights
were needed for the Swedish sample.
RESULTS
Throughoutthe presentationof resultswe will
discuss the variouspropositionsseparatelyfor
men and for women. We do this for two
reasons. First, there has been considerable
discussion in recent years about whether the
class location of marriedwomen in the labor
force should be defined by their own job class
location, the class location of their husband's
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS 71
Table 6. Comparisonof R2 andF-testof the TrajectoryModelsPredictingClass InterestsConsciousness(OLSRegression)

Degrees US Male US Female Swedish Male Swedish Female

of
Freedom Adj R2 F Adj R2 F Adj R2 F Adj R2 F
1. SIMPLEADDITIVE SCALE
Modelsa
A. Origins 3 .006 2.34 .000 .34 .026 5.98*** .046 7.20***
B. Locations 3 .076 18.88*** .007 2.39 .176 40.37*** .046 7.26***
(C. 1 .030 21.14*** .000 1.02 .041 24.43*** .020 8.82***
I. 1 .025 17.71*** .000 .68 .097 60.45*** .023 10.08***
E. 2 .039 14.27*** .000 .63 .102 32.32*** .028 6.61**
F. 3 .056 13.81*** .000 .44 .120 26.09*** .026 4.50**
(. 2 .015 5.80** .000 .40 .027 8.74*** .004 1.84
B + E, Fb 5 .075 11.59*** .004 1.49 .179 25.19*** .061 6.08***
A + BC 6 .075 9.72*** .003 1.25 .183 21.63*** .089 7.29***
2. SIX ITEM FACTOR SCALE
A. 3 .011 3.42* .001 .76 .035 7.79*** .041 6.57***
B. 3 .060 14.91*** .001 1.25 .182 42.14*** .054 8.45***
C. 1 .025 17.81*** .007 5.08* .063 38.17*** .020 8.93**
D. 1 .019 13.54*** .000 .58 .103 64.60*** .052 22.34***
E. 2 .031 11.51*** .006 2.54 .118 38.02*** .052 11.74***
F. 3 .046 11.35*** .004 .75 .134 29.46*** .050 7.87***
G. 2 .007 3.13*** .000 .07 .025 8.23*** .015 3.88*
B + E, F 5 .059 9.16*** .003 1.30 .189 26.88*** .070 6.88***
A + B 6 .062 8.13*** .000 .89 .195 23.37*** .088 7.21***
* p<.05 ** p<.01 *** p<.001.
a The letters for different models
correspondto the models displayed in Table 4:
A. Origin Models
B. CurrentLocation Model
C. Privilege Model
D. UnderprivilegedModel
E. Privilege, Underprivilege,Mixed Model
F. Privilege, Underprivilege,Upward, DownwardModel
G. Upward, Downward, Immobile Model
b The Model B + F uses up only 5 degrees of freedombecause the distinctionbetween
category2 and 3 within model
F disappearsin the B + F model (i.e. the model B + E and B + F are mathematicallyequivalent.)
c The model A + B is the conventionaladditive
origin + destinationsmodel.

job or some amalgam of both.20We do not Class Interest Consciousness

wish to engage this debate here and the
easiest way to bracketout the implicationsof
the debate is to analyze the results separately
for men and for women. Secondly, as we
shall see below, the empirical findings vary
dramaticallyby gender. In particular,in none
of the analyses do any of the class location or
class trajectoryvariables have any effect on
class consciousness for American women.
The interpretabilityof the results, therefore,
is called into question when the equationsfor
men and women are combined.
20 This debate has most
recently been sparked by a
contentiouspaperby John Goldthorpe(1983) in which it
was argued that the class of marriedwomen is strictly
derivedfrom the class of theirhusbands,regardlessof the
employmentstatusof the woman. For a discussion of the
"cross-class family debate" using the same data as this
paper, see Wright (1988).
Table 6 presents the R2's for the various
models predictingclass interestconsciousness
using the restrictiveadditive scale and the six
item factor scale. There is considerable
variation across categories of actors (the
columns in the table) in how well any of the
models fit. In general, the models fit much
better for Swedish men than any other
category, and roughly equally well for
American men and Swedish women. Among
American women none of the models fit the
data very well at all.
For men in both countriesand for Swedish
women, the currentlocation model (Model B)
is a betterpredictorof class interestconscious-
ness than is any of the trajectorymodels. For
Swedish men, the best trajectory model-
Model F (the privilege, underprivilege, up-
ward, downward model)-explains about 12%
72 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
of the variance in class interest conscious- testing the goodness of fit of alternative
ness, whereas the class locations model models from Table 4 for the simple class
(model B) explains abut 18%of the variance. identity dichotomy and for the salient class
While the explained variancesare smaller for identity variable.
American men and especially for Swedish As in the resultsfor class interestconscious-
women for both of these variables, the ness, for Americanwomen in the simple class
patternsare essentially the same. For Ameri- identitylogistic models in Table 8, none of the
can women, on the other hand, neither class models represents a significant reduction in
location for any of the trajectorymodels have scaled deviance over the model containing
any explanatorypower whatsoever. only a constant term (i.e. the model of no
From these results we can conclude that at effects). And in the salient class identity
least for men, currentlocation has a stronger models neitherclass origins, nor currentclass
impact on class interest consciousness than location, nor biographicaltrajectoryexplains
does biographicalclass trajectory.This sup- more than 1%of the variancein class identity
ports the claims of Hypothesis 1. of American women. In the more detailed
analyses of different models which follows,
therefore, the discussion will be restrictedto
Class Identity Americanmen and the Swedish sample.
Table 7 presents the distributionof respon- Among the biographicaltrajectorymodels,
dents with a subjective working class identity Models E and F are clearly the best for these
(simple identity variable) in the full sixteen data. Both of these models provide distinc-
cell class mobility matrixfor Sweden and the tions between three kinds of biographies:(1)
United States. Table 8 presents the results of people who have lived theirentirelives within
the "popular" classes (workers and petty
Table 7. Proportionof Working Class Identificationof
U.S. and Swedish Males and Females by Class
bourgeois); (2) people who have lived their
entire lives in the exploiting classes (middle
Origin and CurrentClass Location
class wage earners and capitalists); and (3)
CurrentClass Location people whose biographiesinvolve movement
(Respondent'sClass) between these two. Model F provides a
Capitalist Petty Middle Working further distinction within the mixed biogra-
Class Bourgeois Class Class phies between those who have moved from
Class popular classes to exploiting classes, and
Origin those who have moved from exploiting
(Parent's classes to popularclasses. Model F is clearly
Class) the best model for Swedish Men, whereas
US Males Model E is the best for Swedish women and
Capitalist .16a (19)b .10 (10) .12 (42) .42 (26) Americanmen.21
Petty B. .43 (21) .58 (12) .20 (30).53 (32)
Middle .21 (19) .50 (4) .20 (106) .37 (86)
How do these trajectorymodels compareto
Working .13 (8) .60 (10) .25 (106) .36 (118)
21
US Females Strictly speaking, the "goodness of fit" cannot be
Capitalist .17 (6) .38 (16) .26 (38).33 (36) directly comparedfor all of these models, since they are
Petty B. .33 (6) .50 (12) .25 (28).44 (57) not all hierarchicallynested. When we compare nonhier-
Middle .22 (9) .14 (14) .23 (61) .39 (66) archically related models, therefore, we are comparing
Working .25 (8) .40 (5) .33 (69).34 (116) their efficiency in reducing the scaled deviance of the
random effects model (the model with only a constant
SwedishMales term). If two models have the same degrees of freedom,
Capitalist .27 (11) .20 (5) .24 (25) .62 (13) and one reduces the scaled deviance more than the other,
Petty B. .38 (13) .58 (12) .49 (35) .71 (75) then we will describe it as a "better"model. In the case
Middle .17 (6) .50 (6) .20 (71) .70 (53) of the comparisonof Models E and F, we can make a
Working .33 (9) .67 (15) .48 (77) .73 (129) direct assessmentof relative goodness of fit since Model
F is nested in Model E. For Swedish men the scaled
Swedish Females
deviance is reducedby 5.98 when we move from Model
Capitalist .00 (1) .00 (0) .08 (13) .40 (20) E to Model F which is significantat the .05 level. There
Petty B. .50 (2) .20 (5) .32 (25) .68 (65) is no improvementin fit whatsoeverfor Swedish women
Middle .50 (2) .00 (2) .16 (56) .43 (49) in model F comparedto model E. For Americanmen the
Working .33 (3) .40 (5) .47 (46) .58 (133) scaled deviance is reduced by 3.56, which is not
a
Entriesare the percentof individualsin the cell who statistically significant at the .05 confidence level.
sayb that they are in the working class. Similar results occur when the R2 in the OLS models in
Numberof cases observed are given in parentheses. Table 8 are compared.
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS 73
Table 8. Goodness of Fit of Models PredictingClass Identity

1. Simple Class Identity (logistic regression)

Degrees US Sweden
of
of Male Female Male Female
free-
dom Scaled Deviancea Scaled Deviance Scaled Deviance Scaled Deviance
Modelb
Constant 15 46.26 15.05 93.26 60.07
A Origins 12 35.61 11.98 64.42 31.37
B Locations 12 19.58 8.67 23.02 27.28
C 14 26.22 9.18 30.15 24.06
D 14 29.77 10.91 45.53 28.99
E 13 19.60 7.67 14.22 12.68
F 12 15.94 7.19 8.24 12.66
G 13 43.98 13.59 86.65 58.62
B + E,FC 10 14.84 6.92 4.20 6.13
A + Bd 9 10.98 6.40 8.49 7.10

2. Salient Class Identity (OLS multiple regressions)

D.F. Adj R2 F Adj R2 F Adj R2 F Adj R2 F
A Origins 3 .011 3.41* .000 1.06 .045 9.74*** .056 8.64***
B Locations 3 .037 9.22*** .009 2.57 .123 26.81*** .078 11.98***
C 1 .026 18.24*** .009 5.94* .108 67.19*** .073 31.76***
D 1 .030 21.23*** .001 5.83* .084 51.69*** .074 31.85***
E 2 .040 14.49*** .012 4.30* .133 43.64*** .101 22.73***
F 3 .043 10.84*** .012 3.14* .143 31.93*** .099 11.92***
G 2 .002 1.73 .001 .76 .010 3.66* .000 1.07
B + E,FC 5 .041 6.54*** .008 1.88 .148 20.27*** .113 10.93***
A + Bd 6 .044 5.99*** .007 1.67 .141 16.11*** .112 9.16***
* p<.05 ** p<.01 *** p<.001
a The scaled deviance are for
groupedlogistic regressionspredictingthe dichotomoussimple class identityvariable.
The letters for different models correspondto the models displayed in Table 4.
A. Origins Models
B. CurrentLocation Model
C. Privilege Model
D. UnderprivilegeModel
E. Privileged, Underprivileged,Mixed Model
F. Privileged, Underprivileged,Upward, DownwardModel
G. Upward, Downward, Immobile Model
The two models B + E and B + F are mathematicallyequivalent,and thus have the same scaled deviancein all cases.
d
The Model A + B is the conventionalorigins + destinationsmodel.

the location model (Model B)? In Table 8, the
currentlocation model and model F both use
three degrees of freedom, but for Swedish
men and women the scaled deviance is nearly
15 less in the trajectorymodel. For American
men, model E (using only two degrees of
freedom) has the same scaled deviance as the
current location model and thus can be
considered a better model on grounds of
efficiency. When the continuous variable
"salient class identity" is the dependent
variable, the adjusted R2 for the current
locations model is 12.3% for Swedish men
and 7.8% for Swedish women. This increases
to 14.3% for model F for Swedish men and
10.1% for model E for Swedish women,
again reflecting the somewhat greaterexplan-
atory power of the trajectoryvariable com-
paredto the currentlocation variable. For US
men the improvementof explainedvarianceis
much smaller, from 3.7% to 4.3% for model
F, but in any case is in the predicted
direction. Overall, then, the evidence sup-
ports Hypothesis 2: class trajectorieshave a
stronger effect on class identity than does
currentclass location.
Class Identityeffects on Class Interests
Table 9 presents the results for the multivari-
ate regressions of Class location and class
identity on class interest consciousness. In
Table 9. The Effects of Class Locationand Class Identityon Class InterestConsciousness (unstandardizedregressioncoefficients

DependentVariable= simple additive interest scale Dependent Variabl

Eq.(l) Eq.(2) Eq.(3) Eq.(l)
1. US MALES (N=650)
Classa Cap PB Mid Cap PB Mid Cap PB
Petty Bourgeoisie .39 .34 .71
Middle Class .50* .11 .52* .18 .72* .01
WorkingClass 1.35*** .96** .85*** 1.31*** .97*** .79*** 1.79*** 1.09**
Class Id Dummy .46** .31*
AdjustedR2 .08 .01 .08 .06
2. US FEMALES(N = 549)
Classa Cap PB Mid Cap PB Mid Cap BP
Petty Bourgeoisie -.48 - .51 .08
Middle Class -. 15 .33 -.16 .35 .08 .00
WorkingClass .08 .56* .23 .04 .55* .20 .39 .31
Class Id Dummy .29* .28*
AdjustedR2 .01 .01 .01 .00
3. SWEDISHMALES (N = 555)
Classa Cap PB Mid Cap PB Mid Cap PB
Petty Bourgeoisie 1.14** .87** 1.54**
Middle Class 1.28*** .14 1.23*** .36 1.74*** .21
WorkingClass 2.48*** 1.34*** 1.20*** 2.04** 1.17** .81** 3.83*** 2.29***
Class Id Dummy 1.47** 1.12**
AdjustedR2 .18 .16 .26 .18
4. SWEDISHWOMEN(N = 389)
Classa Capb PB Mid Cap PB Mid Cap PB
Petty Bourgeoisie -.79 -.60 .21
Middle Class .46 1.25** .63 1.23** 1.15 .95
WorkingClass .92 1.71*** .47** .87 1.47*** .24 2.23* 2.03*
Class Id Dummy .87*** .78***
AdjustedR2 .05 .08 .10 .05
* p<.05 ** p<.01 *** p<.001
a The coefficientsfor the class location
dummy varaiblesrepresentthe differencesbetween the column category and the row categ
equationswith differentleft out categories. With four dummy variablesthere are thus six possible contrasts.
b
There are only five Swedish woman capitalistsin the sample, so the standarderrorsfor these contrastsare quite large.
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS
each of the equations, class identity signifi-
cantly predicts subjective class interests. The
results are particularlystriking for Swedish
men: Class location and working class
identity alone account for 18% and 16% of
the variance in working class interest con-
sciousness respectively; when combined they
account for 26% of the variance. For such a
simple multivariatemodel, this is a high R2
for a regression on attitudes. The explained
variances are lower for Swedish women, but
it is still the case that class identity predicts
class interests net of class location. For the
American equations the effects of class
identity on interests, while still statistically
significant for both men and women, are
much weaker than in Sweden, adding at most
a marginalincrementin explained variance.
ComparingSweden and the United States
Hypothesis 4 argues that the effects postu-
lated in Hypotheses 1, 2 and 3 should be
stronger under macrosocial conditions in
which social and political institutions are
systematically organized along class lines.
Given the working class-centered ideology
which continues to play a much more
importantrole in the Swedish social demo-
cratic party than in the US DemocraticParty,
and given the organizationalstrength of the
labor movement in Sweden, this hypothesis
would lead us to expect considerablystronger
patterns of results in Sweden than in the
United States.
A numberof results are consistent with this
expectation. First, as already noted on a
numberof occasions, the overall explanatory
power of the variousmodels tends to be much
greater in Sweden than in the United States.
For the class identity variablein table 8, all of
the models have higher R2 or greater
improvements in scaled deviance for both
Swedish men and women than for American
men. The models have little or no explanatory
power for American women. For the class
interest consciousness variables, the models
for Swedish men all explain more variance
than the models for US men. The class
location model (B) in Table 6 explains just
over 18% of the variance in class interest
consciousness (factor scale) among Swedish
men, but only about 6% of the variance
among American men. The only contrast in
which a model for the Americansample has a
greater R2 than a model for the Swedish
75
sample is the currentlocation model predict-
ing class interestconsciousness for American
men compared to Swedish women, but the
difference in R2 is relatively small (6.0%
comparedto 5.4% for the factor scale).
Second, when we look at the coefficients in
the models we have been examining, the
magnitude of these coefficients are consis-
tently greaterin the Swedish equationsthan in
the US equations, particularly when we
contrast Swedish men with both men and
women in the United States. Table 10
presentsthe coefficients for the class interests
models and Table 11 for the class identity
models. (Only the coefficients for Model F
among the trajectorymodels are shown since
this is the model of greatest theoretical
interest.) Table 12 presents t-tests for signifi-
cance of differences in coefficients across the
samples.22
In the class identity models, for Model F
the coefficients involvingcontrastswith trajec-
tory (1) for both men and women in Sweden
are generally roughly twice as large as those
for American men. In the current location
model (Model B) for the equationspredicting
simple class identity, the coefficient for the
contrast between the working class location
and the capitalistlocation is 1.71 for Swedish
men but only .65 for Americanmen, and 1.18
and .44 respectively for the equationspredict-
ing salient class identity. Among Swedish
women, the contrasts between workers and
capitalists are not statistically significant in
any of the identity equations (there are only
eight Swedish women capitalists in the
sample which makes the standarderror for
this contrast quite large) but the contrast
between workers and petty bourgeoisie is
nearly twice as large for Swedish women as
for Americanmen.
The cross-national contrasts are equally
strong for the class interest consciousness
equations. Not only does the currentlocation
equationfor Swedish men explain three times
as much variance as the equation for
American men, but the coefficients in con-
trasts between workers and capitalists are
roughly twice as large (see Table 11). The
coefficient in the current location model for
22 We have
adopted a conservative test of the
difference in coefficients across samples: t = (coeffl
- coeff2)/V(sel2 + se22). This test will always give a
smallert-ratiothan a test based directly on an interaction
term in an equationwhich combines the two samples.
Table 10. Estimatesof Coefficientsfor Models PredictingClass Identity (unstandardizedregressionscoefficients)

US
Modelsa Male Female Mal
1. SIMPLECLASS IDENTITY
(groupedlogistic regression)
MODELA (ORIGINMODEL)b
CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB
PM Origin .99** .40 1.13**
M Origin .38 -.61** -.04 -.44 .31 -.82**
W Origin .59* -.40 .21 .17 -.23 .21 1.21*** .08
MODELB (CURRENT
LOCATIONMODEL) CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB
PB Location .86* .48 1.02*
M Location -.26 - 1.12** .18 -.31 .22 -.81*
W Location .65* -.21 .90*** .64 .15 -.46** 1.71** .69*
MODELA + B (ORIGIN +
CURRENTLOCATIONMODEL) CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB
PB Origin .93** .34 .77*
M Origin .39 -.55* -.05 -.39 .12 -.65**
W Origin .51* -.42 .13 .12 -.23 .26 .85** .09
PB Location .85* .49 .93
M Location -.21 - 1.06** .19 -.29 .21 -.72*
WLocation .66* -.18 .88*** .62 .13 .43** 1.59*** .65
MODELF (BIOGRAPHIC
TRAJECTORYMODEL)C (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3) (1) (2)
(2) .49* .35 1.16***
(3) .98*** .48* .54* .19 1.87*** .71*
(4) 1.23*** .74** .25 .71** .35 .16 2.21*** 1.05*
[See end of Table 10 on next page for table footnotes]
Table 10. (Continued)

US
Models" Male Female Ma
2. SALIENTCLASS IDENTITY
(OLS regression)
MODELA (ORIGIN'MODEL)b
CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB
PB Origin .51** .30 .70**
M Origin .10 -.40** .08 -.22 .15 -.55*
W Origin .27 -.24 .17 .18 -.12 .10 .81*** .10
MODEL B. CURRENT
LOCATIONMODEL CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB
PB Location .48 .31 .70*
M Location -.08 -.56* .03 -.28 .16 -.54*
W Location .44** - .04 .52*** .34 .03 .31 1.18*** .49
MODELA + B (ORIGIN +
CURRENTLOCATIONMODEL) CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB
PB Origin .45* .26 .40
M Origin .08 -.37* .09 -.18 .01 -.39*
W Origin .20 -.26 .12 .16 -.10 .08 .50* .10
PB Location .45 .33 .62*
M Location -.04 -.49* .04 -.29 .16 -.47
W Location .46** .01 .50*** .33 -.00 .29* 1.08*** .46
MODELF (BIOGRAPHIC
TRAJECTORYMODEL)C (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3) (1) (2)
(2) .20 .16 .69***
(3) .47*** .27 .31 .15 1.21** .51
(4) .70*** .50*** .23 .45** .29 .13 1.41*** .72
* p<.05 ** p<.01 *** p<.001
a
See Table 4 for full definitionof models:
CAP= Capitalistclass; PB = Petty Bourgeoisie; M = Middle Class Wage Earners;W = WorkingClass Wage Earners.
b
The coefficients in the triangularmatrixrepresentthe differencebetween the column and the row category. The coefficients wer
column categoriesare successively the "left out categories".
c The numbersin this column refer to the levels in model F in Table 2:
Level (l)=a life entirely in the privileged classes.
Level (2)= upwardmobility from popularclasses to privileged classes.
Level (3)= downwardmobility from privileged classes to popularclasses.
Level (4)= a life entirely in the popularclasses.
78 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
Table 11. Estimatesof OLS Regression Coefficients for Models PredictingClass InterestConsciousness

US Sweden
Male Female Male Female
1. DEPENDENTVARIABLE= ADDITIVEWORKINGCLASS INTERESTSCALE
MODELA (ORIGINMODEL)b
CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M
PB .23 .02 .45 1.03**
M .32 .09 .04 .03 .27 -.18 .93** -.10
W .52* .29 .20 .15 .14 .11 .90*** .45* .63** 1.34*** .31 .41*
MODELB (CURRENTLOCATIONMODEL)
CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M
PB .39 -.48 1.14** -.79
M .50* .11 -.15 .33 1.28*** .14** .46 1.25**
W 1.35*** .96** .85*** .08 .56* .23 2.49*** 1.34*** 1.20*** .92 1.71*** .47**
MODELA + B (ORIGIN+ CURRENTLOCATIONMODEL)
CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M
PB Origin .18 -.04 -.05 1.07***
M Origin .16 -.03 .00 .05 -.11 -.06 1.00** -.07
W Origin .26 .08 .11 .06 .10 .06 .32 .37* .43* 1.32*** .25 .32
PB Now .37 -.47 1.09** -.94
M Now .46* .09 -.16 .31 1.25*** .16 .44 1.39**
W Now 1.29*** .92** .83*** .07 .54* .23 2.41*** 1.32*** 1.16*** .83 1.77*** .39*
MODELF (BIOGRAPHIC TRAJECTORYMODEL)
(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)
(2) .21 .10 .08 .48
(3) .90*** .69*** .15 .05 .93*** .85*** .33 -.15
(4) .94*** .73*** .04 .19 .10 .05 1.40*** 1.32*** .47* .77*** .29 .44*
2. DEPENDENTVARIABLE = WORKINGCLASS INTERESTFACTORSCALE
MODELA (ORIGINMODEL)b
CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M
PB .26 .30 .81 1.62**
M .61* .35 .29 -.01 .22 -.59 1.32* -.31
W .86** .60* .25 .35 .05 .06 1.50*** .69* 1.28*** 2.05 .43 .74*
MODELB (CURRENTLOCATIONMODEL)
CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M
PB .71 .08 1.54* .21
M .72* .01 .08 .00 1.74*** .21 1.15 .95
W 1.79*** 1.09* 1.08*** .39 .31 .31 3.83*** 2.30*** 2.09*** 2.23* 2.03** 1.08***
MODELA + B (ORIGIN + CURRENTLOCATIONMODEL)
CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M CAP PB M
PB Origin .19 .25 -.00 1.59**
M Origin .42 .23 .27 .02 -.36 -.36 1.46** -.13
W Origin .55 .36 .13 .30 .04 .02 .57 .58* .94** 1.95*** .36 .49
PB Now .68 .12 1.44* -.02
M Now .58 -.10 .08 -.04 1.73*** .29 1.14 1.16
WNow 1.63*** .95* 1.05*** .37 .25 .29 3.71*** 2.27*** 1.98*** 2.10* 2.12** .96***
MODELF (BIOGRAPHICTRAJECTORYMODEL)C
(1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3) (1) (2) (3)
(2) .29 .41 .55 .30
(3) 1.22*** .93** .51* .10 1.83*** 1.28** .49 .19
(4) 1.22*** .93*** .00 .45 .04 -.06 2.57*** 2.01*** .73* 1.45*** 1.15** .96**
<. p<.05* **
p<.01*** p<.001
a See Table 4 for full definition of models.
CAP= Capitalistclass; PB = PettyBourgeoisie;M = MiddleClass Wage Earners;W = WorkingClass Wage Earners.
b The coefficients in the triangularmatrix represent the difference between the column category and the row
category. The coefficients were calculated from three separate regressions in which the column categories are
successively the "left out categories".
c The numbersin this column refer to the levels in model F in Table 2:
Level (l)=a life entirely in the privileged classes.
Level (2)= upwardmobility from popularclasses to privileged classes.
Level (3)= downwardmobility from privileged classes to popularclasses.
Level (4)= a life entirely in the popularclasses.
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS 79
Table 12. Comparisonof Coefficients of Models PredictingClass Identificationand Class Interests
Entriesin the table are differencesin coefficients between groups in equationsin Tables 10 and 1.a

Swedish Male Swedish Female Swedish Male vs

Models vs US Male vs US Male Swedish Female
1. DEPENDENTVARIABLES= SIMPLECLASS IDENTITY(groupedlogistic regressions)
Model A (ORIGINMODEL)
Cap PB M Cap PB M Cap PB M
PB .15 .27 -.12
M Origin -.07 -.21 -.28 -.54 .21 .33
W Origin .62 .48 .69** .62 .35 .89** .01 .12 -.20
Model B (CURRENTLOCATIONMODEL)
Cap PB M Cap PB M Cap PB M
PB Location .17 - 1.95* 2.12**
M Location .48 .31 -.69 1.26 1.17 -.95
W Location 1.07** .90 .59** -.39 1.56* .30 1.46* -.66 .30
Model F (BIOGRAPHICTRAJECTORYMODEL)
F(1) F(2) F(3) F(1) F(2) F(3) F(1) F(2) F(3)
F(2) .67* .90* - .23
F(3) .89* .22 .36 - .54 .53 .76
F(4) .98** .31 .09 .87* - .04 .51 .11 .34 -.42
2. DEPENDENTVARIABLE= SALIENT CLASS IDENTITY(OLS regression)
Model A (ORIGINMODEL)
Cap PB M Cap PB M Cap PB M
PB Origin .19 .26 -.17
M Origin .05 -.15 -.01 -.38 .06 .23
W Origin .53* .34 .49** .57* .21 .59** -.04 .13 -.10
Model B (CURRENTLOCATIONMODEL)
Cap PB M Cap PB M Cap PB M
PB Location .22 - 1.19* 1.40*
M Location .24 .02 -.40 .79 .64 -.76
W Location .74** .53 .50** -.04 1.15* .36* .78 -.63 .14
Model F (BIOGRAPHICTRAJECTORYMODEL)
F(1) F(2) F(3) F(1) F(2) F(3) F(1) F(2) F(3)
F(2) .49* .54* -.04
F(3) .74** .25 .30 .24 .44 .48
F(4) .71*** .22 -.02 .62** .08 .32 .10 .14 -.34
3. DEPENDENTVARIABLE= ADDITIVE WORKINGCLASS INTERESTSCALE
Model A (ORIGINMODEL)
Cap PB M Cap PB M Cap PB M
PB Origin .22 .80* -.58
M Origin -.04 .27 .61 -.19 -.65 -.08
W Origin .38 .16 .43* .82* .02 .22 -.43 .14 .21
Model B (CURRENTLOCATIONMODEL)
Cap PB M Cap PB M Cap PB M
PB Location .75 -1.18 1.94**
M Location .78* .03 -.05 1.14* .83 -1.11
W Location 1.14*** .37 .36* -.42 .76 -.38* 1.56** -.39 .74***
Model F (BIOGRAPHICTRAJECTORYMODEL)
F(1) F(2) F(3) F(1) F(2) F(3) F(1) F(2) F(3)
F(2) -.13 .27 -.39
F(3) .03 .16 -.57 -.84** .60 1.00**
F(4) .46* .59* .43 -.18 -.44 .40 .64* 1.03** .04

4. DEPENDENTVARIABLE= WORKINGCLASS INTERESTFACTORSCALE

Model A (ORIGINMODEL)
Cap PB M Cap PB M Cap PB M
PB Origin .55 1.36* -.82
M Origin -.39 -.94* .71 -.65 -1.10 -.28
W Origin .64 .09 1.02** 1.19* -.17 .48 -.55 .26 .54
80 SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
Table 12. (Continued)

Swedish Male Swedish Female Swedish Male vs

Models vs US male vs US Male Swedish Female
Model B (Location)
Cap PB M Cap PB M Cap PB M
PB Location .83 -.50 1.33
M Location 1.04* .20 .44 .94 .59 -.74
W Location 2.04*** 1.21* 1.01*** .44 .94 .00 1.60 .27 1.01**
Model F (BIOGRAPHICTRAJECTORYMODEL)
F(1) F(2) F(3) F(1) F(2) F(3) F(1) F(2) F(3)
.26 .01 .25
F(3) .62 .35 -.73 -.74 1.34* 1.09*
F(4) 1.35*** 1.08** .73 .23 .22 .96* 1.12** .87* -.23
a
The standarderrorof the difference is coefficients has been calculatedas the squareroot of the sum of the squares
of each coefficient. The correspondingt-ratiodivides the difference in coefficients by this standarderror. Since this is
a quite conservative test of differences in equations, and since we have specific directionalhypotheses about these
differences, we have reportedone-tailed tests.
* p<.05 ** p<.01 *** p<.001 (one-tailed tests)

the contrast between capitalists and workers
in the Swedish male equationpredictingclass
interestconsciousness (additive scale) is 2.49
whereas it is only 1.35 for Americanmen. In
the more general working class interest scale,
the contrasts between workers and all other
classes and between capitalists and all other
classes are all around twice as large among
Swedish men as among Americanmen. What
these figures indicate is that not only does
class location more systematically predict
class interestconsciousness in Sweden than in
the United States, but the class structureis
more ideologically polarized in Sweden.23
Finally, the relationship between class
identityand class interestsis much strongerin
Sweden than in the United States. In the
zero-order relationship between identity and
interestconsciousness (equation2 in table 9),
the R2 in the Swedish equations is about 8%
for women and 16%for men, but a negligible
1%for both men and women in the US. In the
multivariate equation, the coefficient for
identity net of class location in the Swedish
sample is roughly three times greaterthan in
the US sample.
Taking these various results together, it is
reasonable to conclude that both class loca-
tion and class trajectory are more powerful
determinantsof class consciousness in Swe-
den than in the United States. The results are
thus strongly supportiveof Hypothesis 4.
23 The textureof this
greaterideological polarizationin
Sweden than in the United States is explored systemati-
cally in Wright (1985: chapter 6). See also Carolyn
Howe, (1987: chapter9).
Class and Gender in National
Differences in Consciousness
It is beyond the scope of this paperto system-
aticallyexplorethe role of genderin the models
we have been exploring.Nevertheless,the ef-
fects of genderare sufficientlystrikingin these
resultsto warrantsome comment.In particular,
thereis a sharpcontrastbetweengenderdiffer-
ences and nation differencesin these models:
nationaldifferencesare particularlymarkedin
theoverallexplanatory powerof themodels;gen-
der differencesare markedin both the explana-
tory power of the equationsand the patternsof
coefficients associatedwith the models. These
contrastsare summarizedin Table 13. We have
alreadyexaminedthe nationaldifferencesin ex-
planatorypower of these models. Let us now
look more closely at the gendercontrasts.
Within both Sweden and the United States,
the explanatorypower of all the equations is
much higher for men than for women. The R2
in the basic models we have investigated are
typically in the 5-8% range for US men but
generally less than 1%for US women, and in
the 15-20% range for Swedish men but only
6-10% for Swedish women. At least as
measured with the variables and models in
this study, both class location and class
trajectory are more systematically linked to
dimensions of class consciousness among
men than among women.
The gender contrasts in the pattern of
coefficients is equally striking.24 If we
24
Since none of these models has more than a trivial
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS 81
Table 13. Summaryof GenderContrastsAcross Countries

US Men Swedish Men US Women Swedish Women

EXPLANATORY POWER
OF EQUATIONS(R2)a
location -- interests .08(.06)b .18(18) .01(.00) .05(.05)
location - identity .04 .12 .01 .08
trajectory- identity .04 .14 .01 .10
trajectory-- interests .06(.05) .12(.13) .00(.00) .03(.05)
identity - interests .01(.02) .16(.19) .01(.01) .08(.08)
location + identity - interests .08(.07) .26(.28) .01(.01) .10(.11)
PA7TERNSOF COEFFICIENTS
location and origins - interests location mattersmuch neitherlocation origins mattermuch
more than origins; or origins has more than locations;
no significant coefficients significanteffects no significantcoeffi-
for origins cients for locations
trajectory-, identity mobility into popularclasses patternof coefficients mobility into and
associated with stronger similar to men, out of popular
working class identity than but much weaker classes have identical
mobility out of popular levels of working
classes class identity
aThe R2 figures have been roundedoff to the nearestpercent.
b
The figures in parenthesesrefer to the six itemfactor scale; the figures not in parenthesesrefer to the simple
additive scale.

examine men separately,the basic patternof
coefficients in the models tends to be quite
similar in the United States and Sweden, in
spite of the fact that the coefficients are
generally much larger in Sweden than in the
United States and the explanatorypower of
the Swedish models considerably greater.
Thus, for example, in the trajectorymodels
predictingclass identity (Table 10), for men
in both countries, category 4 in model F (a
life entirely within the popular classes) does
not differ significantly from category 3
(people mobile into the popularclasses) in the
probabilityof having a workingclass identifi-
cation, whereas at least in the simple class
identity equation, category 3 does differ
significantlyfrom category 2 (mobility out of
the popularclasses). Similarly, in the current
locations model predicting class interest
consciousness (Table 11), for men in both
countries the working class has the highest
level of working class interestconsciousness,
the capitalist class has an antiworkingclass
interests consciousness, and the petty bour-
geoisie and middle class wage earners have
rather similar intermediate coefficients. Fi-
nally, in the additive model of origins and
locations (model A + B in Table 11), for men
in both countries the current locations vari-
effect on class consciousness for Americanwomen, all of
the discussion which follows will focus on Swedish
women comparedwith Americanmen and Swedish men.
ables have consistently large and significant
coefficients, whereas the coefficients for
origins are nearly all statisticallyinsignificant
and much smaller in absolute magnitude.
The pattern of coefficients for Swedish
women, in contrast, is very different from
men in both countries. In the class identity
models for Swedish women (Table 10), the
two mixed trajectories (from exploiting to
popular classes and from popularto exploit-
ing classes), are virtually indistinguishable,
and both have a significantly lower probabil-
ity of working class identification than a
trajectoryentirely within the popularclasses,
whereas as already noted, for men in both
countries there is no difference between
trajectories 3 and 4, while "downward"
mobility generally differs from "upward"
mobility.25Similarly, whereas among men in
both Sweden and the United States there is
relatively little difference between the petty
bourgeoisie and middle class in the class
location model predicting class interest con-
sciousness(Table 11), amongSwedishwomen
the petty bourgeois location is much less
proworking class than middle .class wage
earnersfor the additiveinterestscale. What is
25
American women have similar patternsto men in
both countries, but because the coefficients are so much
weakerand the standarderrorslarger, we have much less
confidence in the descriptive accuracy of these coeffi-
cients.
82
particularly striking for the class interest
results is the patterns for the origins +
location model (Model A+B in Table 11).
For Swedish women the coefficients for the
origins dummy variables are all large and
highly significant in the contrastwith capital-
ist class origins, while, in contrast,for men in
both countries, none of the coefficients for the
class origins contrastswith the capitalistclass
are statistically significant.
We do not have a definitive interpretation
of these rather complex interactions of
gender, country and class. We can, however,
offer some preliminarysuggestions both for
why individual class location and trajectory
variablesseem to have less explanatorypower
for women than for men in general, and
second, for why the patterning of effects
seems so different for men and (at least)
Swedish women.
There are two possible lines reasoning for
explaining these gender differences. First, the
lower causal efficiency of class trajectoryand
class location could primarilybe a measure-
ment problem. Perhaps the same formal
criteria for class divisions have a different
class content among men than among women.
It could be, for example, that because of
gender discriminationthe productiveassets of
"middle class" women (skills/credentials)are
devalued and are thus unable to be converted
into exploitation. This would imply that the
distinctionbetween working class and middle
class among women is a weakerclass division
than among men. This, in turn, would both
reduce the explanatory power of class-
centered variables (both location and trajec-
tory) and potentially change the patterningof
their coefficients.
An alternativeapproachto explainingthese
patternsof results is to search for some other
mechanismthat acts to block the effectivity of
these variables among women (or enhance
their effectivity among men). One likely
candidatefor this is the relationshipbetween
gender, family structureand class. As many
people have argued, because of deeply
entrenchedpatternsof gender inequality, the
material interests of married women are
generally more tied to the economic fate of
their husbands than are the materialinterests
of marriedmen tied to the economic fate of
their wives. This is obvious in the case of
full-time housewives, but as Goldthorpe
(1983) has argued, it is also true for most
women in the paid labor force as well. To the
SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY
extent that this is true, then the class interests
of marriedwomen will be determinedless by
the class of their own job and more by the
class of their husbands. Furthermore,over
time this will also mean that their class
identity will depend more on their family-
class trajectorythan simply on their individ-
ual trajectory (as defined in this study).
Individual class location and trajectory will
therefore tend to have lower explanatory
power among women than among men. And,
depending upon how the individual's class
variables are causally tied to the correspond-
ing family class variables, the patterns of
coefficients for individual class variables
would also be expected to be different for
women than for men.
Research by Wright (1988) on the effects
of family class composition on class identity
supports this interpretation.In that study he
found that in the United States the class
identity of marriedwomen in the labor force
is almost entirely determined by the class
location of their husband'sjobs ratherthan by
their own jobs, whereas in Sweden the two
jobs have roughly equal impact on the class
identity of married women. In contrast, the
class locations of wives' job had either no
effect on husband'sclass identity (in the US)
or a much smaller effect than the husband's
own job (in Sweden). Wright interpretsthe
contrast between Swedish and American
married women as reflecting the greater
dependency of American women than Swed-
ish women on the economic fate of their
husbands, both because wage inequalities
between men and women are greater in the
United States than in Sweden and because the
redistributive polices of the state make
women in general less dependent upon their
husbands in Sweden. This greater economic
dependency of women on men in the United
States undermines the causal effects of
women's individual class variables on their
consciousness. But even in Sweden, married
women remain more economically dependent
upon their husbands than married men are
upon their wives, and thus individual class
variables have less explanatory power for
Swedish women than for Swedish men.
CONCLUSION
This paperhas attemptedto join structuraland
processual approacheswithin class analysis.
Much of the analysis is certainly open to
TEMPORALITYAND CLASS ANALYSIS
criticism. Processualapproachesare generally
built around a fairly rich inventory of class
constitutiveexperiencesin communities,work-
places, schools, etc. Our use of processual
approaches, in contrast, is based on a fairly
impoverishedoperationalizationof class tra-
jectory, relying entirely on the linkage
between class origins and class location.
Similarly, contemporary structural ap-
proaches to class generally move beyond
simple working class vs. middle class divi-
sions among wage earners,but because of the
limitations in our data and sample size, we
had to rely on this fairly crude class model.
What is more, as our results for gender
reveal, even within this simple class structural
model, our results may be significantly
affected by ignoring the problem of the
location of families within the class structure.
In spite of these limitations, we believe that
the data we have presented broadly support
the general orienting propositions of this
paper. In particular, the following general
conclusions should be stressed:
First, class trajectories seem to be more
importantthan class locations in shaping the
more culturaldimensions of class conscious-
ness, whereas class locations are relatively
more important for shaping the more nar-
rowly interest-centereddimensions. This is in
keeping with the view that class interest
consciousness dependsmore upon the percep-
tions of one's future class situation than on
one's past, whereas class identity is more
heavily shaped by one's biography in class
based communities, social networks and
interactions. Structural and processual ap-
proaches to class, therefore, seem most
appropriatefor explaining different dimen-
sions of consciousness.
Second, the perceptionof class interests is
shaped at least as much by class identities as
it is by class locations. While structural
approachesto class may be correctin positing
a set of material interests tied to class
structures which create tendencies towards
class interestconsciousness, the actualpercep-
tion of those interests depends as much or
more upon class identity as upon class
location itself. In' this sense processual
theorists may be correct in emphasizing the
primacy of process over structurein explain-
ing empirical variations in class conscious-
ness and class behavior. There remains, of
course, a conceptual primacy of structural
over processual class concepts since it is
83
impossible to define the class content of
biographicaltrajectories,communities, work-
place experiences, etc. withouthaving a prior
elaborationof a structuralclass concept. But
this conceptual primacy does not imply
explanatoryprimacy in the lives of individu-
als.
Third, all of these micro-mechanismsof
consciousness formationare heavily mediated
by the macro-institutionalcontext in which
they operate. Where political and economic
conflicts are heavily organized along class
lines, these micro-mechanismsare likely to
be reinforced;where class has been margina-
lized in institutional forms of collective
organization,then the micro-mechanismswill
be weaker. Again, this reflects a fundamental
insight of processual theorists of class: the
effectivity of the individual experiences that
are constitutive of class depends upon the
historical context within which those experi-
ences occur.
Finally, and not as part of the original
agenda of this paper, all of the results we
have observed of both a processual and
structural nature vary sharply by gender.
While this does not mean that class mecha-
nisms are inherentlygendered in the sense of
having no independenteffectivity in theirown
right, it does mean that the empirical
investigation of the effects of both class
location and class trajectorymust include an
analysis of interactionswith gender.
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