SEC Classification

Article summary

The SEC classification is the classification of consumers on the basis of parameters. Traditionally the two parameters used to categorize consumers were occupation and education of the chief wage earner (head) of the households. The SEC classification, created in 1988, was ratified by Market Research Society of India (MRSI), is used by most media researchers and brand managers to understand the Indian consuming class. Originally developed by IMRB International as a way of understanding market segments, and consumer behavior it was standardized and adopted by the Market Research Society of India in the mid-1980s as a measure of socio-economic class and is now commonly used as a market segmentation tool in India. In the older version, the SEC classification consists of two grids- * The urban SEC grid, which uses education levels and occupational criteria of the chief wage earner (CWE) of a household as measures to determine socio-economic classification, and segments urban India into 7 groups (A1 to E2) and * The rural SEC grid, which uses education and type of house (pucca, semi-pucca, and kaccha) as measures of socio-economic class, and segments rural India into 4 groups (R1, R2, R3, R4) This is based on the assumption that higher education leads to higher income thus higher consuming potential. But that this may not always be true.…

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