Social Class Identification of the Unmarried

Is marriage a social status?

Abstract

     The aim of this paper is to study the process of formation of social status through social changes. In this paper, the author hypothesizes that an individual characteristic becomes a social status under the following conditions: (1) the characteristic is acquired through individual ability, and (2) variance of the characteristic is widened by social changes. In order to test this hypothesis, the author focuses on marital status and analyzes the effects that marital status has on social class identification by using 1985‘s SSM survey data (N = 2,650) and SSP-I 2010 data (N = 1,502). The results of the analysis show that "unmarried" as a marital status had a negative effect on social class identification in 2010, and had no effect on social class identification in 1985. In addition to this, the variance of married age in 2010 was large, while the variance of married age in 1985 was relatively small. However, the results of an analysis clarify that the effects of marriage on social class identification differ between social strata. These facts imply that the author's hypothesis has limited support by social survey data.