미국의 노동계층 백인 남성의 지위변화

Change in the Social Status of the Working Class White Male in the United States

This study analyzes the ISSP-General Social Survey dataset from 1987 to 2009, in order to understand the changes in the social status of working class white male by means of both subjective recognition of social status and objective socioeconomic indicators. The subjective social status the working class white men think themselves to hold has fallen to a lower level than that of non-whites or women. It is not because their objective socioeconomic situation hs been worsened to a lower level than those of the comparison groups. Their family income is still higher than that of comparison groups. In contrast the gap in individual wage with comparison groups has been shrunk, even though there still exist a substantial extent of gap. The white working class male stand at higher level in educational achievement in comparison to non-white comparison groups. The major finding of this study is that as for working class white male, their subjective recognition of social status comes not to be consistent with their objective social status measured by socioeconomic indicators.