Talk:Social class in New Zealand

Classes/Social Strata
The delineation of class into Upper/Middle/Lower etc is interesting but also concerning: Ropata (talk) 04:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Possible racial overtones, without supporting evidence/statistics
 * Need authoritative reference(s) supporting these definitions of social strata, see WP:OR
 * Have spent some time searching the web for NZ social stratification resembling these additions. Added a couple of relevant references, but no particular class definitions were found at Statistics Dept or research articles. So the bullet points are almost certainly OR. Ropata (talk) 05:59, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I suggest that since you've done the research, you remove the OR.- gadfium 08:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Replaced the spurious list with a survey of various reports, with tabulated data and refs. Whew! Ropata (talk) 14:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Rogernomics policies (80s-90s), growing inequality
Note I've changed this sentence
 * As the result, [of the reforms] the gap between rich and poor New Zealanders has increased dramatically, ...

to this
 * Over the period of these reforms, the gap between rich and poor New Zealanders has increased dramatically, ...

because correlation (reforms) does not necessarily imply causation (of income gap). Need another reference to back up the causation thesis. Ropata (talk) 00:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Distinction between social class and economic class not clear in article
I have a few comments to make about weaknesses in the article, which are a reflection of misassumptions made in NZ generally:

Firstly, social class and economic class are not the same thing. You can be the son or daughter of a knight of the realm, have a university degree, and many of the other benefits of priviledge and yet be poor, i.e. on an invalid's benefit or a struggling artist, etc. Someone else may live in a "better" suburb, earn a lot more, drive a flashier car and yet have a worldview, speech patterns and social origins which are working class. A person's social class and economic class can be entirely different.

Secondly, In NZ there are definite sociological differences between people from different social origins, i.e. the way they define and display "success" See Cashed-Up Bogan, their accent & vocabulary, their worldview, value system, nuances in manners, etc. These differences may be more noticeable to people from "higher" social origins as people from "lower" social origins may miss these cues. I am sure I have read about this in a New Zealand context back when I was at university, so the article could potentially include such issues should someone know more of this research I remember seeing.

The following quote from the article shows some of these misconceptions:

"However although wealth is much more unevenly distributed than previously, New Zealand still lacks most of the overt signals of class which mark countries such as Britain. Most people do not care what others' parents do for a living, who a person is descended from, or where they went to school, and New Zealanders almost invariably have more respect for those who have earned their money through hard work than those who have inherited it or made it through investment."

Just because NZ doesn't have a feudal class system, doesn't mean we don't have a class system. In NZ this is largely based around people's jobs (the status of which is linked to money), where you live, and yes, who your husband/family/parents are, where your children go to school, etc. These are certainly less overt than in Britain, but this is more about form than content because it is still in peoples' consciousness. NZers' second question after your name is usually "so what do you do?" which is the primary way Kiwis classify people (i.e. via job status). The article does touch on job status but doesn't really clearly delineate the link between this as the basis for NZ's particular form class consciousness.

Just some thoughts. The article seems to leave a lot lacking and so needs an improvement/clean-up tag. These are just some clarifying suggestions. 121.73.7.84 (talk) 10:33, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * There is a joke that goes In Auckland they ask "How much do you earn?", in Wellington it's "Who do you work for?" and in Christchurch it's "Which school did you go to?" - there is a grain of truth in that. dramatic (talk) 23:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

@ Dramatic: I agree with your comment. In NZ, because people don't have a pedigree as the British upper class do, they use different paramenters to define status. The whole "which school did you go to" and ESPECIALLY "which boat did you arrive on" is particularly Christchurch. I can't comment on Auckland since i've never lived there, although they seem to model themselves on Sydney. In Wellington power certainly trumps money, although the money aspect of our class system still exists in Wellington. 121.73.7.84 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:29, 2 November 2010 (UTC).

@ The original commenter: excellent points, the stuff I added was focussed on socioeconomic strata (SES) survey data from the Stats department and other papers. But there are certainly cultural, racial, and locality dimensions to perceptions of social class in NZ. Certain jobs (lawyer, accountant, manager) have higher "snob" value than others (plumber, builder, cop) and despite heavy student loans and questionable earning power the education system favours the snobbier end of the scale. e.g. NZ Herald: "Want to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer? Don't grow up poor" Ropata (talk) 13:02, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Essay-like?
I've moved that tag to this talk page. It's too vague and does not offer anything constructive. But if someone cares to elaborate on the problem or even improve the article themselves please do so! WP:SOFIXIT ~ Ropata (talk) 10:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)