Sociology

The Impact of Social Class on Preference/Choice of Living Location

Cicely Nguyen

Cicely Nguyen

Cynthia Heddlesten

Sociology

November 13, 2013

As children, we all dream of growing up with a fabulous job that is stress-free and living a huge mansion with ten times more space than we need. Getting into high school and college, we begin to realize that the mansion we’ve always dreamed of having doesn’t just appear with the money you get from a job. We struggle with the issue of money and figuring out how to get enough in order to fit into certain lifestyles. This is called social class. There are three factors that can determine someone’s social class. For some, the things they own are a huge factor in their wealth. For example, owning a large house with a corvette and having no financial debt is an indication that that person has a lot of wealth. This is the property factor. For some, it’s all about who you know. If your dad is the CEO of a booming corporation, you’ll rank pretty high up. However, if your parents are janitors at a high school, you probably won’t rank as high as the heir previously mentioned. This is the power factor. And finally, some people just get a lot of respect for their name based on their statuses. A lawyer, for example, is going to have a lot more regard than of someone in the farming industry. This factor is known as prestige. With these three factors in mind, people make lifestyle choices like where they decide to live.

I’ve asked three people what they would identify as their “dream house.” These subjects have pretty standard jobs (ranking between a 30 and 50 on the list of Occupational Prestige), and none of them know Bill Gates, a CEO, or anyone like that. Two out of three interviewees said they’d prefer to live in a rather larger house of higher quality. The subjects said they’d prefer their dream home to have 4-5 bedrooms and for it to be a 2-3 story house. When I asked these people if they were currently living in their...