Within the hierarchical cluster procedure, there are several ways of forming clusters (see Sharma (1996) for an overview of widely used clustering algorithms). Wards optimizing algorithm,
combined with squared Euclidean distance as the measure of similarity, was chosen on the basis that it has been widely used within the social sciences (Everitt, 1993). This method maximizes with in clusters homogeneity; i.e., it minimizes the with in group sum of squares (Sharma, 1996).