(FORTUNE Magazine) – LIKE IT OR NOT, all of us are largely defined, at least in the eyes of others, according to an elaborate set of criteria -- how much we earn, what we do for a living, who our parents are, where and how long we attended school, how we speak, what we wear, where we live, and how we react to the issues of the day. It all adds up to our socioeconomic class, our ranking in U.S. society. In a process as natural as sunrise, a few folks are consigned to the ranks of the chiefs, the rest of us to more middling places among the workers and drones. Many Americans are more than a little confused about just where they stand in the great hierarchy these days. In part, they are resonating with the broad egalitarian strain that runs through the center of the nation's history and culture. To acknowledge any interest in class status or to spend much time thinking about socioeconomic ranking is to behave in some way vaguely un- American. More important, Americans are responding to changes in the U.S. economic and cultural fabric -- and in the workplace -- that have blurred old- time class distinctions and, in many cases, redefined bedrock status issues. The outline of America's class structure may have seemed simpler just a decade or so ago, when Rutgers University professor Paul Fussell published a widely read primer on the subject. Fussell identified nine distinct socioeconomic classes, ranging from an elite class, virtually invisible behind the tall walls of their mansions, to a wretched underclass, equally invisible in their hovels. In between, in Fussell's universe, were an effete upper class he found ''impervious to ideas,'' an upper-middle class that had earned its status and looked with some disdain on those living off inherited money, a vast and essentially insecure middle class ever concerned about social indiscretions, and several levels of blue-collar ''proles'' whose tastes were unrefined and predictable. Wrote Fussell: ''There isn't anyone in any of these theaters who isn't scared to death that he's going to stumble, waffle his lines, or otherwise bomb.'' That same level of anxiety may still be present, but many of the rules that once defined Americans' class status have been thrown into marked confusion in recent years. One of the most dramatic changes has been the apparent fragmentation of U.S. society into scores of distinct subcultures, each with unique tastes and yearnings of the sort that once distinguished broad social classes. Even a few years ago demographers could mark out a large chunk of the populace -- say, married couples 30 to 54 years of age making over $40,000 -- and safely predict many of the group's responses to questions ranging from presidential choice to preferred brand of mustard. Now marketers and others interested in reaching a specific group must focus much further down. Claritas Inc., a market research firm in Alexandria, Virginia, has identified 62 distinct classes, each with its own set of beliefs and aspirations. At the top are three classes of the so-called Suburban Elite, super-rich families with substantial assets and a taste for expensive cars and other lush consumer goodies. At the bottom are poor isolated country families, a group Claritas labels Hard Scrabble, and single-parent families in the inner city. The company terms this group Public Assistance. In between are dozens of classes of varying affluence and differing behavior -- the upwardly mobile Young Influentials, exurban executive families labeled God's Country, retirement-town senior citizens known as Golden Ponders, African American service-worker families called Downtown Dixie-Style. You may be a Young Suburbanite who drives a hatchback, listens to all-news radio, and carries department-store credit cards. You make the same kind of money as a person of the Blue-Chip Blue class, but you probably drink imported rather than domestic beer and are far less likely to be interested in powerboat racing. Says Michael Mancini, product marketing manager at Claritas: ''What we are really doing is taking a lot of demographic information and making it more real, bringing it to life.'' This trend toward fragmentation into smaller social classes or subgroups is, if anything, accelerating. Watts Wacker, resident futurist at the consulting firm Yankelovich Partners, points to the intricate personal networks forming daily through on-line computer services. Says Wacker: ''People who believed they were the only one in the world who thought a certain way are finding like-minded allies all the time. They are forming fraternities of strangers.'' Recent economic trends have added to the disintegration of old class lines. According to a 1991 study by the National Opinion Research Center, nearly one- half of all Americans consider themselves to be middle class. But many thousands of the jobs that provided for a comfortable middle-class lifestyle have simply vanished. Between 1980 and 1986, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 780,000 foremen, supervisors, and section chiefs lost their jobs due to layoffs and plant closings. In the years since, many thousands of division heads, assistant directors, assistant managers, and vice presidents have suffered the same fate.

Even if these folks were able to find new jobs, they often had to take severe pay cuts. Nearly five million of the 13.6 million new full-time jobs added between 1979 and 1989 paid less than $13,000 a year after adjusting for ; inflation. In 1979, the Census Bureau calculated that 18.9% of full-time workers had low-wage jobs; by 1992, that figure had jumped to 25.7%. THE NUMBER of younger families able to own their own homes, the classic badge of middle-class status, sums up the tale: Though low interest rates have pumped up the market of late, the long-term trend in incomes has made it more difficult for newcomers to get into that market. Over 60% of people ages 30 to 34 owned their own homes in 1973; that percentage had dwindled to 51.5% by 1990. What has evolved, in the estimation of Boston University sociologist Alan Wolfe, is two distinct sets of subgroups within the vast middle class, each defined by different opportunities, expectations, and outlooks. The first, more established middle class moved up during the 1950s and 1960s -- or moved out to the suburbs -- when the continuation of growth was assumed and opportunity abundant. Many people in these strata have survived the recent economic dislocations and remain reasonably confident that they will muddle through somehow. Many are also politically and culturally liberal, and fairly casual about religion. Not so more recent arrivals to the middle class, many of them African American, Asian American, and white ethnics in the ranks of civil servants or blue-collar workers whose jobs have been threatened. These folks are often rigidly conservative, standing fast by traditional middle-class pieties. They are also reeling from the economic dislocations taking place. Wolfe says that millions of these relative newcomers to the middle class are now clinging fiercely to their hard-won gains. ''A kind of desperation has started up,'' says Wolfe. ''People are out there fighting like mad to hold on to whatever status they have achieved.'' One result of these new divisions: heightened antipathy between groups. WHILE CLASS structure in the U.S. has been fragmenting, barriers between the scores of new subclasses have been hardening. Vast changes in the workplace have been partly responsible. Labor Secretary Robert Reich has pointed out that one group of workers, making up about 20% of the U.S. labor force, has been able to keep up with new technology and remain globally competitive. This group, which Reich calls ''symbolic analysts,'' includes such professionals as engineers, investment bankers, accountants, lawyers, systems analysts, and consultants of all types. But the other 80% has not fared nearly as well in Reich's view. These folks -- assembly-line workers, data processors, most retail salespeople, cashiers, and a whole range of blue-collar service workers -- are falling further behind the curve, both economically and in their grasp of changing realities. And more and more, these two groups share less and less. Says Reich: ''No longer are Americans rising and falling together, as if in one large national boat. We are, increasingly, in different, smaller boats.'' This increasing separation between groups is most glaringly evident when it comes to housing. Birds of a feather are flocking ever closer together, finding residences in close proximity to others of their economic and cultural ilk. Market researchers can now pinpoint the class status and buying patterns of just about everyone in the U.S. on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. Says Josh Ostroff, a principal at a Massachusetts research firm called Virtual Media Resources: ''Once I know where you live, I don't need to know a whole lot more about you.'' Claritas Inc. has broken down the entire U.S. into geodemographic clusters, some as small as 300 households. If you are at the highest level of the Suburban Elite class, you live in Blueblood Estates territory like Scarsdale, outside New York; Winnetka, outside Chicago; or Atherton, south of San Francisco. You probably own a new convertible, read one or more of the business magazines, and maintain a full-service brokerage account. If you are an Urban Gold Coaster, you are likely to live on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, along Lake Michigan in Chicago, or in the Pacific Heights section of San Francisco. Your tastes probably run toward sailing and informational TV, and you most likely have at least $10,000 invested in the stock market. As one might expect, rapidly expanding direct-mail companies are among the most aggressive clients for this sort of research. Such enterprises sent out 13.5 billion catalogues last year, accounting for more than $50 billion in sales, and much of their success is due to knowing which addresses are populated by Lands' End types and which by L.L. Beanies. If you drive a new Volvo, you will probably be on the list for catalogues full of preppy clothing from J. Crew or the Smith & Hawken gardening catalogue, with its $50 trowels. If you subscribe to Guns & Ammo and drive a Dodge, you are more likely to be on the list for Sears or Publishers' Clearing House. Advertising agencies make liberal use of such status information as well, as they tailor the hundreds of messages we are bombarded with each day to increasingly specific audiences. The appeal to our class aspirations can be subtle or blatant, as in those Ralph Lauren ads in which all the models appear to be fourth-generation Princetonians. But the key to nearly all such advertising is to touch off a personal response, to signal the consumer that this product or service is appropriate for his or her taste and social status. Says Malcolm MacDougall, chief creative officer at Ally & Gargano in Manhattan: ''The trick is getting people to think 'This beer is me' or 'This magazine is me.' '' With the U.S. class structure now so fragmented, advertisers are forced to hone in ever more closely on specific targets. ''You've got to use a rifle instead of a shotgun,'' says MacDougall. Advertisers must also take into account the fact that tastes of classes and subgroups are shifting more rapidly now than decades ago. At MacDougall's agency, for example, copywriters working on the Saks Fifth Avenue account have begun emphasizing that gold jewelry is a solid investment. In the 1980s, when opulence was more in favor, they would have appealed more overtly to gold as a pure status symbol. The complexities of such status symbols have helped muddy the waters for many Americans trying to find their place in the new hierarchy. At the same time, most of us would like to avoid being seen as striving too hard to appropriate the right symbols. We make cartoons of those hapless middle-class strivers, grasping at the next rung, who name their children Chauncey or Deirdre, keep temperamental pets with long pedigrees, and take up ruinously expensive sports like sailing. AND JUST WATCH OUT for the next shift in tastes: If the Eighties were about greed and ostentation for the uppers, the Nineties are about value and self- fulfillment. The experts observe that affluent tastes now run more toward the utilitarian: A Range Rover or Ford Explorer, rather than a Mercedes, is the vehicle of choice, and a bank credit card with frequent-flier miles attached seems to make more sense than American Express Platinum with a high annual fee. Dressing down seems more practical as well -- loafers instead of lace-ups for men, one-inch pumps rather than high heels for women. Those $115 Hermes ties may come off as a little foppish these days, and top executives even at GM have taken to wearing open collars to work on Friday. Clothing, of course, has always been a peculiarly resonant class symbol, and wearing what is appropriate for one's status at work and play remains a major concern for many Americans. Writes Alison Lurie, in her book The Language of Clothes: ''The man who goes to buy a winter coat may simultaneously want it to shelter him from bad weather, look expensive and formidable, announce that he is sophisticated and rugged, attract a certain sort of sexual partner, and magically invest him with the qualities of Robert Redford.'' On the job, your wardrobe goes to the heart of class status. Many a regiment in the vast army of blue-collar workers, everyone from postal employees to the kids behind the counter at McDonald's, are issued uniforms that let the world know they are in a subservient service role. Most of the rest of us have more latitude about our business wardrobe but are limited by our sense of status and appropriateness. Should you try to dress as well as your boss or try to fit in with the crowd? Fussell is particularly amused by men who spend enormous sums on their clothes but cannot master the casual elegance of the upper classes. Says he: ''The principle of not-too-neat is crucial in men's clothing.'' THE CONFUSION many Americans feel trying to gauge their position in the hierarchy of classes is compounded by dramatic changes transforming the workplace, the arena where most of us still earn our status points. Take the upwardly mobile manager. Not very long ago the path to class glory was clear. You landed in a management-training program at some large company, kept your nose clean and your eyes open, acquired a mentor or two. If you were smart and lucky, you eventually found yourself battling it out with a few others for one of the top positions. If not, you hung around loyally as a general manager or vice president until the right moment and then were assured all the money you would ever need for a comfortable retirement. There was absolutely no confusion about your class status; you were an Executive, with all the perks and status appurtenant thereto. Just about no piece of that old template remains intact these days. The best way to enter the managerial cadre may still be to join a so-called academy company, a McKinsey, General Electric, Citicorp, or PepsiCo, where you can learn the key levers, the core strengths and weaknesses, of any business. But according to top executive recruiters, many big, prestigious companies -- and smaller employers for that matter -- are hiring fewer liberal-arts grads and MBAs who require a lot of training. Instead, they favor engineers and techies who can actually add value the first day on the job. This trend toward the specialist is evident further down the ladder, as well. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that technical jobs -- encompassing everything from software programming to air-conditioning repair -- will increase 37% by 2005, vs. 20% for all other jobs. Much of the growth in the ranks of technicians will come at the expense of old-style manufacturing operatives. Some observers of the corporate scene say that once on the job, would-be managerial types find that sharp elbows have become a good deal more valuable than politeness. With fewer management jobs available and far more bottom-line pressure everywhere, the high-status prizes now go only to those willing to be hyperaggressive about doing what's necessary to achieve results. Says Robert Salwen, a principal at the management consultant firm William M. Mercer: ''There's a lot less sentimentality in the workplace today. It's all about who can deliver the goods quickest -- you eat what you kill.''

Confusingly, other experts argue that such drive isn't enough; that, indeed, it may be an impediment to progress through the managerial ranks. Because so much of business has been decentralized, this argument goes, companies now depend on a small corporate staff of flexible, smart, analytically trained people. These folks must be comfortable with leading-edge technologies, should think globally, and ideally should be adept at dealmaking with strategic partners. They also have to be squeaky clean. ''Increasingly, top executives must embody the company's ethics,'' says Dayton Ogden, chief executive of the executive-search firm SpencerStuart. And they have to display a key new talent: handling an increasingly diverse work force. With people ever more vigilantly maintaining their separateness, their ethnic and cultural identity, on the job, the new manager must find ways to integrate their efforts. IS IT POSSIBLE to get beyond fretting over one's status? Paul Fussell, in his treatise on class in America, winds up with a chapter about what he calls an X Class -- folks who have expanded beyond the boundaries of class consciousness and live their lives caring not a fig what others think. These X Classers behave in what most would consider an unconventional manner, and all of us probably know someone who tries to break the mold at least some of the time. Futurist Wacker of Yankelovitch Partners, who lives and works in the affluent suburb of Westport, Connecticut, wears shorts to church on Sunday and resolutely refuses to use a computer. The trouble is, if enough people start behaving like that, some marketing whiz will no doubt classify them: the Iconoclasts, or some such. In truth, there is scant escape from the class consciousness that surrounds us, and most of us will probably continue to respond to a range of status pressures and signals, even as these pressures and signals become harder to parse.

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The new segmentation is most evident in housing, as similar people huddle closer together.

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