Resources and capital of different social classes in modern Latvia

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the resources and capital of modern Latvia’s social classes located close to the opposite poles of social structure. The article intends to address two research tasks: (1) checking the possibility of identifying social classes in modern Latvia; (2) searching for differences in resources and capital between the identified social classes. The study is based conceptually on the multi-criteria theory of social classes and the conception of ‘ideal types’ as well as on the theory of capital and the innovative resource-based approach. The article presents results of the survey conducted in Latvia (2019, n = 798). Research results show that ‘ideal types’ of the working class and the middle class, identified by two objective (income and education) and one subjective (self-identification) criteria, together form only 9% of modern Latvia’s society. These social classes differ among themselves not so much by the amount of resources as by the amount of capital, meaning that the working class in Latvia is less able to capitalize resources.

Keywords

• Latvia, Social classes, “Resource portfolio”, Total capital, Degree of the resource capitalization, Lower working class, Middle class