Socio-economic status scales updated for 2017

INTRODUCTION

Socio economic status (SES) refers to an individual’s position within a hierarchical social structure, which is one of the important determinants of health status. Composite scales are generally used to measure the SES, which has a combination of social and economic variables. There is no direct measure of the social status of an individual; therefore, an attempt had been made by many eminent researchers and social scientists in the past to formulate a composite index to measure it. Several methods or scales have been proposed for classifying different populations by socioeconomic status: Rahudkar scale 1960, Udai Parikh scale 1964, Jalota Scale 1970, Kulshrestha scale 1972, Kuppuswamy scale 1976, Shrivastava scale 1978, Bharadwaj scale 2001.

The most commonly used scales for measuring socioeconomic status are modified BG Prasad scale, Kuppuswamy scale, and Uday Pareek scale used for both urban and rural areas, urban areas, and rural areas, respectively.¹ However, social transformation and fast-growing economy have rendered these scales ineffective in measuring the SES at present. Hence considering present factors they have been revised.

Kuppuswamy’s socio-economic status scale

The modified Kuppuswamy scale is commonly used to measure SES in urban and peri-urban communities. The Kuppuswamy scale was devised by Kuppuswamy in 1976 and is based on a composite score considering the education and occupation of the head of the family along with monthly income of the family, which yields a score of 3-29. This scale classifies the study populations into high, middle, and low SES, as shown in the Table 1.² Usually education and occupation of head of the family are not changeable with time. However, the income ranges in the scale lose their relevance following the depreciation in the value of the Rupee.^3,4 Therefore, it is needed to update the scale regularly for socioeconomic classification of study populations.

The changes in the income scale are proportional to the change in the Consumer price index numbers for industrial workers-CPI (IW). The CPI values are interpreted with reference to a base year. The previous base years were 1960, 1982 and 2001. The latest CPI- (IW) available for January 2017 has been calculated taking 2001 as the base year. To begin with we calculated the income scale for the selected years 1982 and 2001 which coincides with change in base year for calculation of CPI by applying the appropriate conversion factors on the original scale.

The monthly income of family (in rupees) for 1976 was calculated according to base year 1960=100 (using the price index for 1976 as 296), and this rose to 490 in the year 1982.^5,6

Price index for 1976 by 1982 base= 100/490x296=60.408, Conversion factor for 1982= 296/60.408=4.90

Mishra revised the Kuppuswamy index in 1998 as per the price index year 1998 (using the price index for 1998 as 405) using base year 1982 = 100, which was again later revised by Kumar et al. by keeping 2001(price index 458) as the base year according to the 1982 base.^5,7 Price index for 1998 by 2001 base= 100/458x405=88.428, Price index for 2017 (by 2001 base)⁶ = 274, Conversion factor for January 2017= 274/88.428= 3.09

Multiplying the income scale of 2001 by 3.09 updates the scale for January 2017 (Table 1). Kuppuswamy’ scale however has limitations as there is an overemphasis on income rather than educational and occupational factors. Education and occupation factors also need to be revised by using suitable survey methods.

B.G. Prasad’s Socio-economic status scale

BG Prasad’s classification is used in both urban and rural areas and is based on per capita monthly income. It was introduced in 1961 considering the base of Consumer Price Index (CPI) for 1960 as 100.⁸ The scale was modified in 1982 and 2001 by introducing linking factors to convert CPI (1982 and 2001) from the new base of 100 to the old base CPI (1960). The linking factors for 1982 and 2001 were 4.93 and 4.63, respectively.⁶

Price index for January 2017⁶ (by 2001 base) = 274 Multiplication factor = Current index value (274)/Base index value in 2001 (100) = 2.74, New income value = multiplication factor × old income value × 4.63 × 4.93.

Where 4.63 (1982) and 4.93 (2001) are the linking factors given by the Labour Bureau of India. The updated values for the per capita monthly income (in Rs. /month) for January 2017 are given in Table 2.⁸

The advantage with BG Prasad's classification is that it takes into consideration only the income as a variable and is easy to calculate and it is applicable both for urban and rural families. As price index value will be updated at frequent intervals there is need for simultaneous updating of this socio-economic classification and this is a limitation.

Udai Pareek’ socio-economic status scale

It attempts to examine the socio-economic status for rural population. This scale has nine factors which assess the socio-economic status of the individual as shown in Table 3.⁹ After filling the information, and scoring the individual items, the total score is summed up and interpreted in terms of the class as per the Table 3.

Income is a sensitive issue for the families and they may not be comfortable in discussing it with the interviewer. Udai Pareek scale does not collect information on income, so the data collected with the scale may be more valid.

CONCLUSION

As AICPI value will be updated at frequent intervals there is need for simultaneous updating of all socio-economic classifications which consider income as a parameter.

The present paper is a step towards providing useful updated information on commonly used socioeconomic scales. The updated socio-economic scales should be used by researchers in community health studies to determine the socioeconomic status of the study subjects precisely.

Funding: No funding sources

Conflict of interest: None declared

Ethical approval: Not required

REFERENCES

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