Un nuevo enfoque para la estratificación socioeconómica del Ecuador

Abstract

Social stratification consists of classifying individuals in a country or region according to similar socio-economic characteristics. The methodologies used to classify people by strata vary from country to country, as different criteria, variables or cultural factors are considered. In Ecuador, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses, through the Socioeconomic Level Stratification Survey, aims to identify socioeconomic groups and their characteristics, this is the official classification for social, economic and demographic studies. The objective of this research is to build a criterion of social stratification based on household consumption patterns, using data from the Survey of Income and Expenditures of Urban and Rural Homes of Ecuador, and applying the K-means grouping method, in order to ascertain the socio-economic situation of Ecuadorians. The results suggest that consumption can bring households closer considering the preferences revealed; also, it allows identifying how the socioeconomic characteristics of the head of the family influence the classification of social classes.