Social Class, Occupational Conditions, and Self-Esteem

This study is an attempt at further specification of the relationship between social class and self-esteem. We argue that the effects of social class on self-esteem are largely experienced through occupational conditions which affect the self-evaluation dimensions of self-efficacy and self-worth. We examine these relationships, with the use of path analysis, for a sample of working men. The path model considers the direct and indirect effects of social class (socioeconomic status and education) on occupational conditions (work complexity; control over work; degree of supervision and routinization), on dimensions of self-evaluation (self-efficacy and self-worth), and on general self-esteem. We found the direct effect of our social class indicators on general self-esteem to be small and insignificant. But occupational prestige was significantly related to occupational conditions, which in turn were significantly related to self-worth and self-efficacy. Education had a direct effect on self-efficacy and self-esteem and an indirect effect on self-esteem via self-efficacy and job complexity. Of the two dimensions of self-evaluation, self-efficacy had a substantially stronger effect than self-worth on general self-esteem. These findings support our expectation that the effects of social class on self-esteem are largely mediated by occupational conditions which affect primarily the efficacy dimension of self-evaluation.