Women and classes: Gender and the class base of new social movements in the Netherlands

Abstract. According to conventional methods of stratification, the occupational position of the male determines the class position of all members of his family. Mann and other authors suggest that the assumptions underlying this method no longer hold. This note seeks to test both the conventional method and an approach which includes the positions occupied by women, by studying the class base of the support for so-called New Social Movements (NSMs). The data are taken from a Dutch survey held in four rounds in the year 1987. The results show that the inclusion of the class position of women themselves is an improvement, in comparison with the conventional stratification method. The position of women not only has an effect on their own levels of support for NSMs, but also influences that of their spouse.