Are social (occupational) classes coherent, distinct entities? While they reflect an underlying reality, they are more fragmented than theory suggests. It is hypothesised that skill mismatches mean that each class includes a substantial proportion of poorly paid people who could be in the class...

A longitudinal analytical framework, one that sees class as a process over time and not a fixed attribute, is proposed as a means to redirect class analysis and revive a theoretical debate that has gone stale. Class analysis implies an inherently dynamic perspective. However, quantitative...