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Title: New Occupational Scores from the 2012 GSS Prestige Study

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2015

Abstract: Public ratings of occupations in the 1960s and again in 1989 provided useful information on hun- dreds of occupations. The ratings and socioeconomic scales based on them have been very useful for the study of social stratification and mobility. The transformation of manufacturing and the emergence of new occupations in the life sciences, information technology, and financial services threaten to make the old ratings and scales obsolete. New codes from the U.S. Census Bureau include 285 occupations that have never been rated by the publi. In 2012, we undertook, as part of the General Social Survey, a partial replication and comprehensive update of the public rating task. The results show a degree of stability consistent with Treimans (1977) findings regarding public agreement about social standing over time and place. Respondents in 2012 tended to rate new occupations much as previous samples did. People rated new occupations much as the cre- dentials and pay associated with them would predict. Many of the new occupations employ college graduates; the average social standing among new occupations is correspondingly higher than that of occupational titles that were rated in the past. Both credentials and pay continue to predict the popular rankings. The relative weight of these predictors has changed since 1989; income is more important than it was in 1989.

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Hout, Michael; Smith, Tom W

Conference Name: RC28 meeting

Publisher Location: Tilburg, Netherlands

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Methodology and Data Collection

Countries:

IPUMS NHGIS NAPP IHIS ATUS Terrapop