Chapter 13: Social Class

and Mobility: Lifestyle Analysis

Consumer Behaviour
Sangeeta Sahney

© All rights reserved. Oxford University Press 2017

Learning outcomes 
After going through this chapter, the reader will be able to understand:
 The meaning of a social class

 The concepts of social class and social status

 The characteristics of social class

 Social class classifications and lifestyle profiles

 Social class mobility from various perspectives

 Social stratification and consumer behaviour

 Lifestyle analysis: nature of lifestyle, meaning of values, and lifestyle

Introduction

 A social class has a major influence on the kinds of goods

and services and/or brands people buy and use, the prices
they pay, and the places from where they buy.
Meaning of a social
class
 A social class may be defined as a group of people who share an
equal status and possess similar values and norms, attitudes and
opinions, and behavioural patterns.

 It is homogeneous within, and heterogeneous to other classes, with

people in a particular social class sharing similar values and beliefs,
attitudes, and behaviour.

 Social classes are, therefore, relatively homogeneous, and members

within a particular class share values and beliefs, attitudes,
interests and opinions, and lifestyles, as well as similar behaviour.
 The term ‘social class’ has been defined from various
perspectives.

 A social class may also be defined as an aggregate of

objective and subjective measures that describe a person’s,
family’s, or household’s hierarchical position in a society.

 Ownership to a social class is determined by criteria which

can be classified as objective and subjective.

 Objective criteria include income, education, and occupation.

 Subjective criteria include prestige and power, as well as class

belongingness and identification (also referred to as class
consciousness).
 People are classified into a hierarchy of distinct classes
such as lower, middle, and upper, and people within a
class enjoy relatively the same status and socio-economic
ranking based on the wealth (income and other economic
assets), prestige (respect and recognition), power, and
other valued dimensions that they hold.
 The terms ‘social class’ and ‘socio-economic class’ are often
used interchangeably.

 However, this could be a limitation to the actual nature of a

social class because of two reasons.

• First, the term ‘socio-economic class’ has an economic

orientation, and would include income as a variable, which is
used as a basis for determining one’s ‘social class’.

• Second, the term ‘socio-economic class’ is different from

‘social class’ because the former is more flexible and
changeable, while the latter is relatively more stable.
Social class and social status
 Sociologists often make a distinction between social class
and social status.

 While social class is an economy concept measured by

income wealth, occupation, and education, social status is
a social measure which illustrates a person’s social
standing within the community.

 Social class is measured in terms of status.

 Status may be achieved or ascribed.

Characteristics of social class

 Hierarchical Structure

 Identity and Belongingness

 Relatively Permanent and Ordered Divisions

Social class mobility
 People in a community move from one stratum to another.

 The movement of people either as individuals or as a family through a

system of social hierarchy, from one class or social stratum of the society
to another, is known as social mobility.

 Social mobility may be explained from various perspectives, namely from

one class to another, absolute and relative, and long term and short term.
 Vertical and horizontal mobility

 Inter-generational and intra-generational mobility

 Absolute and relative social mobility

 Short-range mobility and long-range mobility

Social stratification and
consumer behaviour
 Real-life applications of social class when it comes to
goods and services, hobbies and interests, and general
spending and saving patterns.

 Marketing mix

 Hobbies and interests

 Orientation towards saving and spending patterns

 Product Price Place Promotion
-Product choice -Definition of the -Preferences -Message content
‘right price’ towards organized and context;
-Brand choice
or unorganized
-Imagery -Message appeals
-Priorities with stores (the kirana
respect to -Reference pricing or the mall) -Spokespersons
functionality or
-Discounts and -Preferences -Media
symbolism, and
allowances towards physical preferences, print
related purchase
stores or online media or broadcast
motivation -Price-quality
stores media
(whether relationship
utilitarian or value- -Store ambience
expressive) and atmosphere

Social class and marketing mix: Elements to be considered

Lifestyle analysis

 Lifestyles are consistent patterns of people in their day-to-day

lives.

 Within a social class, people have similar activities, interests,

and opinions (AIOs).

 Several frameworks have been introduced for lifestyle

analysis, and for measuring psychographic variables, such
asthe AIOs (Wells and Tigert, 1971), the Rokeach value survey
(RVS) (Rokeach, 1973), VALS (SRI 1978, 1989, 1991), and the
List of Values (LOV) (Kahle, 1983).
Meaning of lifestyle and its
relationship to consumer behaviour
 Lifestyle is the manner in which people live in a society and
conduct their lives, and how they spend their time, money,
and other resources.

 It is a function of demographics, psychological

characteristics, and the social environment that a person is
exposed to as he evolves in his life cycle.

 The study of consumer lifestyles is an important factor in

determining how consumers make their purchase decisions,
that is, what they buy, when, where, how much, and when.
 Lifestyle is related to demographics and varies across people
of different ages, gender, literacy levels, place of residence
(urban, semi-urban, or rural), and religion.

 Lifestyle is also group specific, and is influenced by family

and other reference groups, social class, and culture.

 Lifestyles are closely related to the social class.

 Lifestyle closely relates to values, and impacts both the

general and specific patterns of behaviour.

 Lifestyles include elements that are both cognitive and

affective (attitudes, opinions, and feelings) and behavioural
(action-oriented).
Meaning of values and their
relationship to consumer behaviour

 Values are a belief that an end state or a code of conduct

leading to the end state is preferable to another.

 Values are guides to appropriate behaviour, and direct

general and specific acts of behaviour, including
consumption patterns and buying behaviour.
Meaning of lifestyle marketing and its
relationship to consumer behaviour

 Consumer lifestyles influence people’s product preferences,

consumption patterns, and buying behaviour, that is, what
they buy, from where, and at what price.

 People with different lifestyles show differences regarding

product and brand choices, functional and symbolic benefits,
pricing and discounts, mode of payment, mode of shopping
(physical or virtual, or both), outlet location and atmosphere,
media preferences, and receptivity of message appeals
(informative, factual, and comparative versus emotional).
 Lifestyle analysis and research is used to fine-tune the
offerings, and design the entire marketing mix, be it
product, price, or place and promotion.

 Realizing the importance of consumers’ lifestyles, and

their relationship with buying behaviour and consumption
patterns, marketers today are actively involved in
conducting market research.

© All rights reserved. Oxford University Press 2017

Values and lifestyles, and their
impact on consumer behaviour

 People express their VALS with the kinds of goods and

services they buy and use.

 People buy goods and services and/or brands used by

others who have similar VALS to theirs, both with the
objective of defining and depicting their lifestyle patterns
and identifying with them.
The measurement of social class
 The measurement of social class helps identify and/or
classify people into social class groupings, thereby identifying
segments, targeting viable ones, and value positioning.

 Subjective measures

 Reputational measures

 Objective measures
• Single-variable indexes
• Composite-variable indexes