4. Socioeconomic Indexes for Occupations: A Review, Update, and Critique

Abstract

Following a review of the history and sources of socioeconomic indexes for occupations, we estimate a new set of indexes for 1990 Census occupation lines, based on relationships between the prestige ratings obtained by Nakao and Treas in the 1989 General Social Survey and characteristics of occupational incumbents in the 1990 Census. We also investigate theoretical and empirical relationships among socioeconomic and prestige indexes, using data from the 1994 General Social Survey. Many common occupations, especially those held by women, do not fit the typical relationships among prestige, education, and earnings. The fit between prestige and socioeconomic characteristics of occupations can be improved by statistical transformation of the variables. However, in rudimentary models of occupational stratification, prestige‐validated socioeconomic indexes are of limited value. They give too much weight to occupational earnings, and they ignore intergenerational relationships between occupational education and occupational earnings. Levels of occupational education appear to define the main dimension of occupational persistence across and within generations. We conclude that composite indexes of occupational socioeconomic status are scientifically obsolete.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity with Formative Measurement: A Mediator Perspective

“…Any scale refinement should be based on both empirical and theoretical information and not rely solely on empirical data. For formative measurement, indicator weights are dependent on specified structural models (Bollen &Davis, 2009), and the relative contribution of indicator weights is model dependent (Bollen et al, 2001;Hauser & Warren, 1997). Therefore, the choice should be based on "theoretical relevance" (Cenfetelli & Bassellier, 2009).…”

Childhood Adversity, Families, Neighborhoods, and Cognitive Outcomes: Testing Structural Models of the Bioecological Framework

“…The gender variable was dichotomous indicating non-overlapping groups of males and females, as present in the data set. Following the framework set out by Duncan et al (1972) the SES variable was a composite variable consisting of total household income, highest educational level achieved by the head of the household, and head of household occupational prestige (Hauser and Warren, 1996). A scale score was constructed by standardizing the three continuous variables and summing the standardized values to generate the SES control variable.…”

Reliability of the Core Items in the General Social Survey: Estimates from the Three-Wave Panels, 2006–2014

“…For occupations, we used the new prestige and socioeconomic scores based on the 2012 GSS prestige study (Hauser and Warren 1997;Hout, Smith, and Marsden 2015). We reproduced common scales for support of legal abortion, misanthropy, and gender roles.…”