Canadians & Class: Strong belief in Canada as a meritocracy, but plurality identify as the same social class as their parents

Canadians & Class: Strong belief in Canada as a meritocracy, but plurality identify as the same social class as their parents
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Few believe social class is important for success, but two-in-five’s class stayed static across generations

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September 21, 2023 – Canada is not one of the first countries to come to mind when one thinks of social class hierarchies, but it has been affected by the growing wealth inequality seen across the world in recent decades.

New data from the Angus Reid Institute in partnership with the University of Alberta Sociology Department explore social class and inequality in Canada through an in-depth survey of more than 8,000 Canadians.

Overall, Canadians are most likely to identify as middle class (42%). Approaching one-in-five identify as working class (17%), lower middle class (17%) and upper middle class (17%). Six per cent believe themselves to be lower or poverty class, while the smallest group – one per cent – say they are upper class. If you’d like to see how you fit on the class spectrum, click here to take the online quiz.

The data show most Canadians have either weak (40%) or no (34%) attachment to their social class identity. Few (7%) believe it is important to individual success in Canada. Instead, majorities believe the typical elements of a meritocracy – hard work (59%), education (58%) and ambition (51%) – are more likely to lead to accomplishment in the country.

Despite this, Canadians’ chosen places on the class hierarchy align with some typical markers of success. Canadians who assign themselves lower on the class strata have less education and income, and are less likely to own a home, than those who self-identify higher up the class pyramid. Canadians who believe they are poverty class are less satisfied with their access to quality health care (45%) and education (64%) than the average (57%, 81% respectively). They are also more pessimistic about their own future (61% vs. 36%).

The data also find a plurality of Canadians identify as the same social class as they label their parents (42%). One-third (35%) believe they’ve attained a higher class than their parents while one-quarter (23%) have fallen down.

Canadians’ class mobility experiences appear to play a role in their perception of what it takes to succeed in Canada. The upwardly mobile are more likely than those who believe they have underperformed their parents’ class to say hard work (63% vs. 52%), education (62% vs. 54%) and ambition (57% vs. 44%) are essential for achievement in the country. The downwardly mobile are more likely than class ascenders to believe who you know (40% vs. 29%) and your social class (10% vs. 5%) are important factors.

More Key Findings:

  • Working class (35%) and upper middle/upper class (35%) Canadians are the most likely to have a strong attachment to their class identity, but that is still the minority opinion in those groups.
  • Those in Saskatchewan (26%) are more likely than those in other regions of the country to identify as working class. A plurality in all provinces identify as middle class.
  • Canadians who say their parents were poverty class are less likely than the average to say they were read to as a child (31% vs. 53% average), grew up in a safe neighbourhood (41% vs. 74%) and regularly visited the doctor and dentist when they were a kid (39% vs. 70%).
  • Meanwhile, Canadians who say they grew up in an upper or upper middle class household are much more likely than others to say, as a child, their family assumed they would attend university (72% vs. 51% average), they travelled outside Canada for vacations (35% vs. 60%), and they had a mutual fund, RESP or TFSA before they turned 18 (25% vs. 13%).

 

About ARI

The Angus Reid Institute (ARI) was founded in October 2014 by pollster and sociologist, Dr. Angus Reid. ARI is a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research foundation established to advance education by commissioning, conducting and disseminating to the public accessible and impartial statistical data, research and policy analysis on economics, political science, philanthropy, public administration, domestic and international affairs and other socio-economic issues of importance to Canada and its world.

About the U of A Sociology Department

The University of Alberta Sociology Department (U of A) is one of the most-interdisciplinary Sociology departments in Canada, with faculty members and graduate students engaging in a wide range of ex-citing boundary-breaking scholarly research.

These results come from the Great Canadian Class Study (GCCS), led by Drs. Maroto, BayatRizi, and Durou at the University of Alberta. The GCCS presents an in-depth study of social class and inequality in Canada — the first of its kind in many years — using multiple types of data. The overarching goal of this project is to better understand the role of social class in the lives of Canadians, how different groups perceive social class, and whether social class identity can be linked to other dimensions of life.

INDEX

Introduction

Part One: How Canadians view their own social class

  • Attachment to social class

  • Self-identified social class across regions

  • The financial picture – Income, employment, home ownership

  • The social picture – Social connections

  • The cultural picture – Tastes and preferences

  • Social class and politics

  • Social class and satisfaction with access to education, health care

  • Those who identify as lower, working class have less optimism for the future

Part Two: Mobility and views of success

  • Family background and parents’ social class

  • Class mobility

  • Social class and mobility experiences are linked to views of success

 

Introduction

In 2019, the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadian households controlled 44 per cent of the total income and 67 per cent of the total net worth. On the other end of the spectrum, the poorest 20 per cent of Canadians accumulated only 4.6 per cent of the total income and -0.1 per cent of the total wealth. Many households in Canada have also been experiencing increasing economic insecurity, precarity, and vulnerability with rising costs and the housing affordability crisis.

Economic inequality is perhaps the most visible and easily identifiable aspect of social class differentiation in Canada. Other aspects include the strength of social ties and the accumulation of culturally prized attributes, such as education, taste, and knowhow. However, discussions of social class have been limited in Canada. Why is that? Do Canadians simply not identify with social class? Do Canadians all see social class in the same way? How might we link discussions of social class, inequality, and meritocracy across Canada?

The following report presents results from an online survey of 8,043 Canadians conducted by the University of Alberta and the Angus Reid Institute in April 2023 as part of the Great Canadian Class Study (GCCS).

This report begins to address larger questions about social class in Canada by using GCCS survey data to discuss how Canadians perceive their own social class membership; how this understanding of social class varies across groups; how it might be linked to other measures of social class; and how it connects to views of success and aspects of social mobility.

Part One: How Canadians view their own social class

In studying social class, researchers often take certain markers such as a person’s education, income, or occupation as proxies or stand-ins for their social class. These provide some information about social class, but, at times, these measures contradict each other. They also don’t tell us which social classes people identify with or see themselves fitting in.

Although it is common to ask about race or gender identity, researchers rarely ask people what their social class is. Most assume social class membership based on other objective markers like income, education, or occupation.

The GCCS, by contrast, asked respondents to choose their social class identity. The largest group of Canadians (42%) identify as middle class.

Additionally, six per cent of Canadians identify as poverty class, and equal sized groups identify as working class (17%), lower middle class (17%) and upper middle class (17%). Notably, only one per cent of Canadians identify themselves as upper class. Due to the small proportion of Canadians who identify as upper class, throughout the report below Canadians who identify as upper middle class and upper class are combined into a single category of upper middle class.

Attachment to social class

Despite most respondents reporting some social class identity, overall attachment to those identities is rather low. When asked how much of an attachment or connection they had to their social class, 34 per cent of respondents indicated that they have no attachment whatsoever and only seven per cent indicated a strong attachment.

Across class groups, attachment is highest among working class and upper middle-class individuals.

Self-identified social class across regions

There are regional variations in how Canadians identify their own social class. Those in Quebec are the most likely to identify themselves as upper middle class at approaching one-quarter (23%) and the least likely to describe themselves as working class (10%). The opposite is true in Saskatchewan, which is home to the smallest proportion of respondents who identify themselves as upper middle class (11%) and the largest proportion of those who call themselves working class (26%). Meanwhile, Atlantic Canadians are the most likely to call themselves poverty class (9%).

It’s worth noting, however, in each region of the country, a plurality believes themselves to be middle class.

The financial picture – Income, employment, home ownership

The previous discussion provides one idea of social class in Canada based on individuals’ own subjective social class identities. It tells us how people perceive or think about their own social class. The broader social class picture, however, includes many other dimensions.

Social class is associated with access to many different types of resources, or capital (value accumulated over time that potentially yields future benefits). Following the French Sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, many researchers group these resources in terms of economic, social, and cultural capital.

Economic capital refers to resources that can be directly transformed into property rights. These include property, assets, and income, as well as individuals’ accumulated skills (human capital). Most often, researchers measure this type of capital in relation to income and occupation, but it can also be connected to homeownership, wealth, and economic security.

Social capital refers to people’s interpersonal ties, their positions in social networks, and what can be gained from these social connections. “Who you know” matters for access to resources.

Cultural capital refers to knowledge at its broadest levels that can include what people know about the norms, values, and beliefs of different groups. This knowledge does not necessarily make people more productive, but it does help them to function better in different groups or social contexts. Most of the time researchers measure cultural capital in relation to a person’s level of education and different tastes or preferences.

Looking at the intersection of self-identified social class and two areas – education and income – in the following figure shows links between all three. Respondents who identify as poverty class report an average household income of about $35,000 and education level that includes some post-secondary education. Income and education are very similar for working and lower middle-class individuals with an average income of about $67,000 and education that includes college degrees and trades certificates. For middle class respondents, the average income is about $100,000 with 25 per cent of these individuals reporting a post-secondary diploma and 35 per cent reporting a university degree. Finally, upper middle-class Canadians report average household incomes of $140,000, and they are the most likely to have obtained university degrees (29%) and education beyond university (20%).

Thus, there appears to be a connection between Canadians’ self-assessment of social class and their own household income and education. The relationship is stronger for income, but education clearly plays a role as well.

When it comes to employment, those who identify as lower/poverty class are less likely to be working (34%) than others. They are also much more likely to be unemployed (11%) or out of the labour force (14%). For all other groups of class self-identities, at least 62 per cent say they are employed (see detailed tables).

There also appears to be a connection between home ownership and self-identified class. Canadians who identify as middle class (73%) and upper middle class (79%) are much more likely to be homeowners than those who say they are lower middle class (56%) or working class (53%). Canadians who refer to themselves lower or poverty class are the only group who are majority renters (61%).

The social picture – Social connections

Class is also linked to a person’s social connections or who they know. Respondents were asked whether or not they know someone employed in 16 different occupations. Upper middle class respondents tend to report knowing people in a broader range of occupations. On average they report knowing people in 10 occupations, while people in other social classes report knowing individuals in seven to eight occupations.

The types of connections also stand out. Those who identify as poverty class are less likely than other class identities to have personal connections to people employed in a wide variety of occupations. This is true among some of the occupations Canadians are more likely to know – small business owners, teacher, nurses, construction workers, accountants.

Canadians who identify as upper middle class are more likely than others to know someone in many of the listed jobs. The exceptions are retail salespeople (57%), servers (49%), and truck drivers (43%). Notably, for all three jobs, those who identify as working class are the most likely to know someone in that field, indicating perhaps a social gap in those fields between working and upper middle class Canadians.

The cultural picture – Tastes and preferences

There are a lot of similarities in cultural preferences among self-identified social classes, but some subtle differences exist. Some preferences across classes are at a majority level – for casual locations in the case of restaurants – or a plurality one – hybrid SUVs when it comes to vehicles, countryside for neighbourhoods. Outside of those more dominant shared preferences, there some correlations.

Those who identify themselves as poverty class are the most likely to say they are most comfortable in fast food restaurants (14%) and the least likely to say they are comfortable in fine dining ones (8%). The opposite is true of those who identify themselves as upper middle class (26% fine dining, 3% fast food).

Although hybrid SUVs tend to be the popular vehicle choice across self-identified class groups, they are most popular among upper middle class respondents. Pick-up trucks are the preferred choice for three-in-ten (31%) working class individuals, the most of any group of self-identified social class. Poverty class individuals are also the most likely to say that they prefer not to drive.

When it comes to finding a place to buy a beverage, a plurality of all groups of self-identified social classes except those who identify as poverty class choose independent coffeeshops from the four options presented. More than one-third (35%) of those who identify as poverty class say Tim Hortons, the top choice among that class group.

Meanwhile, majorities of Canadians who identify as working class (55%) and poverty class (56%) would live in the countryside if they could. Preference for the countryside falls among the lower middle class (48%), middle class (45%) and upper middle class (39%) while preference for the suburbs rise.

Social class and politics

In the last federal election, the Liberal and Conservative parties combined to win 279 of the 338 available seats. There is a significant concentration of political power in Canada’s two largest political parties. They are the only two parties, including their predecessors, to have formed government federally in the last 100 years.

With this in mind, Canadians who identify at the upper end of the class hierarchy are much more likely to have voted for the two largest parties than those who identify as working or poverty class.

Those who say they are poverty class are the least likely to have voted Conservative in 2021 (16%) and the most likely not to have voted at all (17%). A similar rate of those who identify as working class (15%) also say they did not vote in the last federal election. The NDP, a party typically associated with the labour and union movement, was the preferred party in 2021 by one-in-five of those who identify as working class (19%) and poverty class (19%).

Social class and satisfaction with access to education, health care

The Canadian health-care system has been under tremendous stress in recent months. Provincial governments had been pressuring for more funding help from the federal government, which eventually acquiesced in February with a new health care accord. Lengthy wait times for specialists and surgeries and a countrywide shortage of family doctors have impeded access to health care for many. In September, two-in-five (41%) Canadians told the Angus Reid Institute that they had a difficult time or were totally unable to access the care they needed.

Related:

There appears to be a correlation between self-identified social class and access to health care. Overall, three-in-five (57%) say they are moderately or very satisfied with their access to quality health care. Those who identify as poverty class are the least likely (45%) of the class groups to express satisfaction with their ability to obtain quality health care, but those who are upper class (63%) are more likely than others to feel satisfied with their access.

A similar trend is seen among the class groups when it comes to access to quality education.

Those who identify as lower, working class have less optimism for the future

In general, Canadians are more pessimistic than optimistic about the future of the country, their province and the next generation, but they are more optimistic than not about their own future.

Those who identify as poverty class are the only class group to be more pessimistic than optimistic about their own future, while Canadians who say they are working class are divided evenly on the matter. On all four fronts, Canadians who believe they are upper class are the most likely to have a rosy view of the future:

Despite not having a strong attachment to their self-identified social classes, Canadians do experience certain divisions along social class lines. Survey data from the Great Canadian Class Study paint different economic, social, and cultural pictures by social class in Canada with those at the ends of the class distribution – poverty and upper middle class individuals – standing out the most. Social class also appears to be linked to political identities and shapes views of the future.

Class matters, here, but not for everyone. Yet, what does this mean for experiences of class mobility and views of success?

Part Two: Mobility and views of success

Parents’ social class and family background

In studying social class, one of the key questions relates to that of mobility and family backgrounds. Canada is generally assumed to be a meritocracy where talent and hard work are what help people move ahead and succeed. Equal opportunity, or the assumption that everyone has access to the same resources and opportunities for success, is also built into this ideology. Like the American Dream, the Canadian Dream is rooted in ideas of social mobility. Everyone has the chance to move up the social ladder to increase their status and standing. In a time of rising inequality, is this dream still attainable? Do people still support ideas of meritocracy?

In general, Canadians are more likely to say their parents’ social class was a lower stratum than their own. This is especially seen in the number of Canadians who identify as working class (17%) versus the number who say their parents were working class (26%). An opposite trend is seen among those who identify as middle class (42%) versus the number who say their parents were middle class (35%). Otherwise, there are similar numbers who identify as poverty class, lower middle class, and upper middle class or upper class, as Canadians who believe their parents to be those classes:

There are some stark differences in childhood experiences depending on how respondents labelled their parents’ social class. This is especially true for Canadians who say their parents were poverty class. That group is much less likely to say they were read to as a child (31%), grew up in a safe neighbourhood (41%), and regularly visited the doctor and dentist (39%). As well, they are much less likely to say they lived with two biological or adoptive parents (43%).

Also notable are some of the differences at the other end of the class spectrum. Canadians who say their parents were upper middle class or upper class are much more likely than others to say they had access to the technology they needed (68%), travelled outside of Canada for leisure (60%), opened a mutual fund (25%) and their family paid for help with cooking or cleaning (26%) in their childhood than others:

Class mobility

While there is perceived mobility across generations, as the chart below shows, Canadians’ parents’ and own social class identity are still very much linked.

Among those who say they were born into middle class families, 57 per cent continue to identify as middle class. For Canadians who say their parents were upper middle class, this proportion is 42 per cent. This figure is lower for those with working class (35%) and poverty class (22%) parents.

Perceived mobility is rare from bottom to top – only seven per cent of Canadians who say their parents were poverty class now identify as upper middle class – and top to bottom – only three per cent with upper middle class parents say they are now poverty class.

Overall, two-in-five (42%) Canadians identify as the same social class that they label their parents. More believe they are upwardly mobile (35%) than believe they’ve descended (23%) the class ladder.

Social class and mobility experiences are linked to views of success

Respondents were asked to indicate the top three things that they believed were the most important for success and advancement in Canada from a list of 11 options. Overall, there appears to be a strong belief in Canada as a meritocracy as the top selected options are hard work (59%), education (58%) and personal ambition (51%). These are followed by networks and social aspects – social skills (39%) and connections (23%). One-quarter (23%) believe good health is important for success.

Status characteristics – place of birth (5%), social class (7%), gender (6%), race (8%) and appearance (6%) – are seen as mattering the least.

These assessments vary depending on respondents’ own experience with class mobility. The upwardly mobile are more likely to believe hard work (63%), education (62%) and personal ambition (57%) matter than the downwardly mobile (52%, 54% and 44% respectively) – though the latter group still select those the most. For the downwardly mobile, who you know – social connections (41%) – is seen as more important than for the ascenders (29%). Canadians who identify as the same social class as their parents are also more likely than the upwardly mobile to believe social connections are key to success in Canada.

Although social class is not selected as an important factor for success by more than one-in-six in any static or mobile group, those who say they are, and their parents were, poverty class are the most likely to believe social class matters in Canada. That group is also the most likely to believe good health plays an important role (37%):

Just as an individual’s self-identified social class is linked to their current economic, social, and cultural situations, so is their parents’ social class and their experiences growing up. And even though most Canadians still strongly believe that success in society is based on meritocratic principles, it is clear that a person’s parent’s social class shapes their opportunities and chances for upward mobility.

Survey Methodology:

The Angus Reid Institute and University of Alberta Sociology Department conducted an online survey from April 5-22, 2023 among a representative randomized sample of 8,043 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding. The survey was commissioned and paid for jointly by the U of A and ARI.

This study was funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant (#435-2020-0451). This research has been reviewed and approved by the University of Alberta Research Ethics Office (REB Ethics ID Pro 00104777).

For detailed results by age, gender, region, education, and other demographics, click here.

For detailed results by self-identified social class, click here.

To read the full report, including detailed tables and methodology, click here.

To read the questionnaire, click here.

Image – Randy Laybourne/Unsplash

MEDIA CONTACT:

Shachi Kurl, President, ARI: 604.908.1693 shachi.kurl@angusreid.org @shachikurl

Dr. Michelle Maroto, University of Alberta: gccs@ualberta.ca @ClassCanadian

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