Lifestyles in distressed neighborhoods: A test of Bourdieu's “taste of necessity” hypothesis

In his theory of social inequality and lifestyle groups, Bourdieu (1979) argued that lower classes exhibit a “taste of necessity”. His main argument is that members of the lower classes are not able to sufficiently convert economic capital into cultural or social capital and vice versa, i.e. to successfully increase their capital volume. This hypothesis has neither been operationalized nor tested so far. We will give an explicit formulation of Bourdieu's theory and develop a test, using indicators derived from Bourdieu's work Distinction. We then apply our model to data from lower class members living in distressed neighborhoods in Cologne, Germany.Groups belonging to the lower classes are located in a “social space”, with dimensions to be interpreted as “capital volume” and “composition of cultural and economic capital”. We show that members of the lower classes cannot sufficiently increase their capital volume since they cannot efficiently convert “cultural capital” into “economic capital” and vice versa, a fact that supports Bourdieu's assumption of a “taste of necessity”.