MALE-FEMALE DIFFERENCES IN OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE AND THE DEMAND FOR GENERAL AND OCCUPATION-SPECIFIC HUMAN CAPITAL

A human capital model of occupational choice as demand for general and occupation-specific human capital is developed to show how women's occupational choices vary with their lifetime labor force participation patterns. The model is tested using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women. The major empirical finding is that women who take less home time choose occupations which require more human capital, especially specific human capital. Women's occupations and wages are quite responsive to changes in their labor force participation patterns. If women worked continuously, their occupations and wages would be much closer to those of men.     

Social networks and occupational choice: The endogenous formation of attitudes and beliefs about tax compliance

The paper analyses the emergence of group-specific attitudes and beliefs about tax compliance when individuals interact in a social network. It develops a model in which taxpayers possess a range of individual characteristics – including attitude to risk, potential for success in self-employment, and the weight attached to the social custom for honesty – and make an occupational choice based on these characteristics. Occupations differ in the possibility for evading tax. The social network determines which taxpayers are linked, and information about auditing and compliance is transmitted at meetings between linked taxpayers. Using agent-based simulations, the analysis demonstrates how attitudes and beliefs endogenously emerge that differ across sub-groups of the population. Compliance behaviour is different across occupational groups, and this is reinforced by the development of group-specific attitudes and beliefs. Taxpayers self-select into occupations according to the degree of risk aversion, the subjective probability of audit is sustained above the objective probability, and the weight attached to the social custom differs across occupations. These factors combine to lead to compliance levels that differ across occupations.     

Ich will Feuerwehrmann werden!

In this article, we use the data from the German PISA 2006 national supplementary sample (PISA-E) to examine gender-(a)-typical occupational aspirations of boys and girls at the age of 15. To do so, we study three types of explanatory factors: the influence of parents, individual achievement as well as of school support for scientific activities. We find that parents are important socializing agents, yet, in a gender-specific way. While upper-class girls in particular prefer male-typed occupations due to the modern gender roles of their parents and better information about career prospects, boys are mainly influenced by their fathers?? role models, irrespective of their social class. In addition, girls are more likely to choose female occupations if they have low levels of competences and poor grades. Boys, in contrast, with good grades in math are more likely to choose male occupations, whereas boys with good grades in German are more likely to choose female occupations. These findings suggest that it is primarily because of girls that female occupations are being devalued, not because of boys. School activities to support scientific activities, however, do not affect gender-(a)-typical occupational aspirations, neither of girls nor of boys.     

The Relationship Between Weight and Career Payoffs Among Women

The thesis that weight affects women's life chances for reaching high-status, white-collar jobs is tested with survey data gathered from a large aerospace organization (N = 306). It is hypothesized that women who are at or below their desirable weight will have higher incomes and occupational positions than women who are overweight, with human capital variables controlled. It is further hypothesized that weight will be most related to occupational position in male-dominated occupations and in occupations that involve frequent contact outside the firm. Results show that weight is related to income, but only at entry-level professional/managerial occupations. Weight is significantly related to occupational position, especially so in male-dominated occupations. Weight is not more strongly related to occupational position in jobs involving outside contact. Findings are consistent with the interpretation that discrimination based on weight in the general society extends to the inner workings of workplace organizations.     

Burnout,coping and suicidal ideation: An application and extension of the job demand-control-support model

Suicidal tendencies are typically considered related to individual traits or predispositions, but some occupations have significantly higher rates than other occupations and the general population. This article proposes that stressful work conditions may be important in understanding occupational variations in suicidal tendencies. It explores the links between work-related factors and burnout, and suicidal thoughts among veterinarians. Burnout appears to be an important mediator in understanding veterinarians’ suicidal tendencies; work conditions that are emotionally exhausting for veterinarians may foster suicidal thoughts. Individual coping strategies are also explored. Emotion-focused strategies of avoidance and alcohol consumption not only exacerbate burnout and suicidal thoughts but also amplify the harmful effects of some job demands. Active problem solving is not as beneficial as expected, but a supportive work environment is a valuable coping resource. Organizational interventions and coping resources effective in reducing burnout may also reduce the risk of suicide for those in service occupations.     

Nonmetropolitan Status and Kindergarteners' Early Literacy Skills: Is There a Rural Disadvantage?*

Abstract This study seeks to discover whether beginning kindergarteners vary in early literacy readiness according to their county's metro/non‐metropolitan status, county‐level economic and social characteristics, individual demographic characteristics, family social capital resources, and preschool childcare. Using student‐level data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Kindergarten Cohort and county‐level data from various secondary sources, we estimate a two‐level hierarchical linear model to test the relationship between early literacy ability and individual and county demographic and structural factors. Results show that there is a direct association between living in a nonmetropolitan county and early literacy ability at the beginning of kindergarten, but that the direction and strength of these relationships depends on individual ethnicity and socioeconomic status, as well as the social and economic characteristics of the county.     

The elements of social capital in the context of six high schools

Purpose: The study described in this paper is part of a larger research project entitled, “Social Capital and Its Effects on the Academic Development of Adolescents At Risk of Educational Failure.” We drew the data for this study from in-depth case studies of six United States public and private secondary schools. We selected the schools based on two criteria: (1) they enrolled substantial proportions of students who would be considered to be at risk of educational failure due to their academic status, social background, or geographical location; and (2) they had qualities that led us to believe that the probability of finding school-based forms of social capital would be high. In selecting schools, we sought variation among settings, selecting case-study sites that allowed us to learn about how schools create and sustain social capital supportive of the academic development of students, particularly students characterized as at risk of failure.Background: In the first part of the larger research project, we used quantitative methods and a large, nationally representative sample of U.S. secondary schools and students. In that study, we documented the existence of a relationship between school-based social capital and such student outcomes as positive academic behaviors, achievement growth over the secondary years, and the probability of dropping out of high school. We operationalized the construct of social capital with two measures of the quality of students’ relationships with their teachers—the extent to which students saw their teachers as supportive and whether students sought guidance from their teachers outside of class. We believed, however, that school-based forms of social capital are more varied and complex than this. Moreover, we thought that it was important to examine in greater detail how social capital itself varies with the organizational and structural characteristics of high schools. Therefore, we embarked on a second phase of our study in which we relied on qualitative methods: specifically, the in-depth investigation of a small set of high schools thought to have social capital but exhibiting important variation on organizational and structural characteristics. Within these schools, we used field-based methods to examine social capital and students’ access to it.Methods: In general, we asked, “What does social capital look like in the six high schools that we studied?” “Do the quality or characteristic of social capital depend on a school’s student body composition, its programs and policies, or the ideologies and traditions that underlie its operation?” “If so, how do these factors influence the quality of school-based social capital that students have access to in a school?” “Are characteristics or elements of social capital especially prevalent or dominant in certain types of schools?” “Which types of schools, given our case-study sites?” “What do the results of these investigations tell us about the nature of social capital—its creation, maintenance, and usefulness to students and teachers in high schools?”Results: Our analyses of interview data and field notes suggest that school-based forms of social capital may be viewed from six different perspectives. These perspectives, which we refer to as elements of social capital in our paper, are:

• 1. Volition and perceived interest in membership. What are the opportunities that individuals have, both in terms of choices between schools and choice of programs within schools, to affiliate with others based on their interests? These choices may strengthen social capital within groups but weaken social capital between groups that comprise a school and its adjacent community.
• 2. Location and integration of social capital across social relationship networks. Where is social capital located in a school? Although we see the primary location for social capital to be between students and teachers, other networks of relationships also influence the extent to which students can gain access to social capital through teachers (e.g., teacher-to-teacher relationships or teacher-to-parent relationships). Integration across these relationships facilitates the formation of new relationships, trust building, and flows of information.
• 3. Impetus for social capital. What are the reasons that people seek to form supportive, collaborative relationships within schools? Such reasons may be individual or organizational, we argue. Nonetheless, social capital is most powerful when the impetus for its creation and maintenance coincide—that is, when organizational factors reinforce personal inclinations, perceived interest, and a sense of community.
• 4. Formation and stock of social capital. How much effort is required to create social capital? Social capital may occur naturally, as in small, rural schools, or it may require substantial effort and purposeful actions, as in large, urban schools. Natural forms of social capital may have negative consequences if they restrict exchanges with external groups to an extent that academic development is curtailed. Purposeful forms may also have negative consequences, if too much effort is required to create and sustain social capital, drawing deeply on already scarce resources.
• 5. Focus and quality of social capital. How is social capital used in a school? Social capital may be used for many different purposes, not all of which promote academic development. Social capital may be used to primarily promote social goals or ends, or even to undermine students’ development and a school’s academic mission. Differences in interest between school members diminish the focus of social capital, weaken its utility for academic purposes, and can create conflicts over its use and function.
• 6. Norms and social control. Do school norms and sanctions promote positive expectations and interactions between members of a school? Behavioral expectations and official actions are an important element of school-based forms of social capital. Over reliance on sanctions can undermine trust, just as does failure to sanction significant violation of rules. The consequences, norms, and sanctions for social capital depends on how much socialization is required to comply with norms, the perceived fairness of norms and sanctions, and the costs and benefits associated with compliance.
• 7. Conclusion: Using these conceptual lenses, we examine how social capital takes shape and is used in six different high schools. We provide examples of how each of the above six elements helps to understand the quality of interactions between students and teachers, as well as the educational environment in which students’ academic development takes place. In concluding the paper, we argue that social capital is a complex yet useful construct for examining the operation of high schools and the academic development of the students who attend them. Moreover, our examination of six high schools suggests that there can be too much social capital in schools and that social capital is most difficult to nurture in places that need it most. Using our field data, we give examples and provide further explanation for why this is so.

%Rather than provide an in-depth treatment of each element, we have instead attempted to lay the groundwork for deeper study and conceptual development of the notion of social capital in this paper. Each of the elements deserves more careful scrutiny, we believe, especially if we are to weave together in a meaningful fashion the conceptual threads that make social capital such an appealing construct. This initial study reveals some of the richness and complexity of social capital as a construct, as well as the utility of examining it through the six conceptual lenses that we use in this paper.     

Residential mobility and the spatial dispersion of personal networks: Effects on social support

Using a representative national sample of personal networks, this article explores how the spatial dispersion of networks, residential mobility and social support are linked. Three issues will be addressed here. Firstly, how is the spatial dispersion of personal networks related to individuals’ social characteristics, network composition and residential mobility? Secondly, how do the spatial dispersion of networks, residential mobility and their combined effect influence the number and (thirdly) the structure of emotional support ties? Results showed that the extent of the support was affected neither by the geographical distribution of the networks nor by residential mobility. Living far from one's birthplace, however, exerted two distinct, and opposite effects on the support network structure. On the one hand, mobility led to high spatial dispersion of personal contacts, which in turn favored a sparsely knit network centered around the mobile individual. On the other hand, by controlling for the effect of distance between the contacts, we found that individuals that cited long-distance ties tended to be part of more transitive support networks than those that cited local ties. We interpreted the latter effect as evidence that transitive ties may survive greater spatial distances than intransitive ones. These findings are discussed in view of spatial mobility and social network research.     

A comparison of the allocation of male and female occupational prestige*

Ce travail cherche à répondre à deux questions: de quel façon le sexe d'un ouvrier influence l'évaluation du prestige professionnel, et quelle est la relation existant entre la composition des sexes par rapport aux occupations, et l'évaluation du prestige professionnel lorsque le sexe des ouvriers est pris en considération. Trois échelles du prestige professionnel (traditionnelle, masculine, féminine) sont créées. Les résultats indiquent des différences dans l'ordre hiérarchique et les niveaux moyens du prestige professionnel masculin et féminin. De plus, la composition par sexe des occupations influence le statut social des occupations de deux façons différentes. This paper is concerned with two questions: how does the sex of the worker influence the evaluation of occupational prestige, and what is the relationship between the sex composition of occupations and the evaluation of occupational prestige when the sex of the worker is taken into consideration? Three occupational prestige scales (traditional, male, and female) are created. The results show differences in both the rank order and mean levels of male and female occupational prestige. In addition the sex composition of occupations is shown to influence the social standing of occupations in two separate ways.     

Capital at Home and at School: A Review and Synthesis

Human, financial, and social capital from several contexts affects child and adolescent well‐being. Families and schools are among the most important, and research is increasingly studying how effects of capital across such contexts affect child and adolescent academic and social outcomes. Some research suggests that families may be more powerful than schools in promoting child and adolescent well‐being. Additional research is needed to more fully understand how capital across institutions interacts in producing child well‐being, when and why multiple institutions or levels of analysis are relevant, and how several contexts can form chains of causation. Theories of social capital may promote increased conversation among researchers who study the same outcomes yet focus their analyses on different contexts.     

The contextual effect of trust on perceived support: Evidence from Roma and non-Roma in East-Central Europe

In recent years, trust has been conceptualized as an important source of social capital, setting off cross-disciplinary research on both the benefits and predictors of trust at the individual and contextual level. In this paper, we turn to the individual outcomes of living in a trustful context, and explore the relationship between trust, itself one of the main components of social capital, and social support, seen as one of the most important effects of social capital. In particular, we ask how social capital—and the relationship between trust and social support—functions in the context of unequal societies. We model perceived support as an outcome across three levels, from no support to proximate to distal support, and using a cross-national study of Roma and non-Roma across 12 European countries, we track the relationship between trust and support across both mainstream and marginalized populations. Our findings suggest that living in contexts with more trust has protective effects particularly for members of marginalized groups: the Roma are more likely to have distal support in contexts with higher trust. We conclude that contextual trust helps to broaden the circle of support beyond family and friends; thus, trust can indeed be a synthetic force that binds individuals together in broadened structures of support.     

The power of social capital: Adapting Bourdieu to the study of public relations

All organizations have relationships with their environments that can be described as their social capital. The development of this social capital is a crucial public relations activity. Taking a cue from the late French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, social capital can also be seen as one of the several resources used to obtain or maintain positions of power. Bourdieu, however, was quite vague about how social capital should be analyzed and did not write about organizations per se. Accordingly, I will discuss and elaborate on the social capital concept by drawing from the work of Nan Lin (2002).     

Social capital and leaving the nest: Channels and housing tenures

Young adults in Europe sometimes have trouble moving away from their parents and obtaining a home of their own, which is considered an important step in the transition to adulthood. This paper investigates whether nest-leaving is affected by individual social capital and parental economic capital. The paper also examines how these resources are related to the type of housing tenure obtained and whether the housing was acquired through informal channels. In addition, the paper assesses whether differences in access and returns to social capital can explain the later nest-leaving of the children of immigrants. The study uses a Swedish two-wave panel survey of young adults aged between 19 and 22. Individual social capital is operationalized as an extensive social network measured with the position generator, while parental economic capital is estimated with registered disposable income. The results show that individual social capital is positively related to prospective nest-leaving, but parental income is not. Nevertheless, both individual social capital and parental economic capital are related to the obtained housing tenure type: social capital is linked to informal ‘second-hand’ rental agreements often acquired through contacts, whereas having high-income parents is linked to obtaining owned housing tenure. The children of immigrants are found to be more likely to live with their parents, but this is not explained by lower access or return to social capital.     

Individual Stress,Collective Trauma,and Social Capital in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill*

This article examines persistent social impacts of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) by focusing on the relationship between social capital and chronic individual stress and collective trauma, using Hobfoll’s (1988) conservation of resources model of stress as an organizing framework. Data are based on in‐depth personal interviews conducted 14 years after the disaster. Analyses focus on the ways in which stress‐related behaviors associated with loss and threat of loss of various forms of resources have affected social capital in the renewable resource community of Cordova, Alaska. Findings reveal lower levels of trust, disruptions in associations, weakened social connections and networks, altered social discourses, diminished feelings of good will, and violations of norms of reciprocity. Behaviors associated with long‐term stress related to the EVOS and to the associated protracted litigation are indicative of diminished social capital. This research highlights the critical importance of social capital as a collective resource and illustrates the ways in which decreased social capital can exacerbate individual stress and collective trauma.     

Entscheidung unter Unsicherheit – Familiengründung und -erweiterung im Erwerbsverlauf

The current investigation analyses the impact of income and economic uncertainty on women’s family formation and expansion. Analyses based on the data of the German Socio-economic Panel reveal that partner income and income security have positive effects on the propensity toward family formation. Conversely, downward mobility in the partner’s career inhibits second birth transitions. Partner resources could be interpreted as social capital facilitating the realisation of the desire for children. Furthermore, the investigation shows that only persistent occupational uncertainty has negative effects on first birth transitions valid equally for men and women. Consequently, results suggest that women are not backtracking from the labour market in reaction to experiences of uncertainty and exclusion. This indicates that women’s occupational establishment is an important condition of family formation. In conclusion, the analysis documents that individual economic und social situation rather than potential economic incalculabilities associated with higher unemployment rates.     

Social Capital Across the Life Course: Age and Gendered Patterns of Network Resources1

Despite increasing research interest in network dynamics and cumulative advantage/disadvantage processes, little remains known about how social capital varies across the life course. While some researchers suggest that social capital increases with age and others argue the opposite, this study tests these contradictory assertions by analyzing multiple indicators of social capital from a nationally representative data set on working‐age U.S. respondents. The findings reveal evidence of both social capital accumulation and decline. Social resources from occupational contacts tend to increase with age, but eventually level off among older respondents. Changes in voluntary memberships follow a similar pattern. However, daily social interaction is negatively associated with age. Overall, the results suggest that social capital embedded in occupational networks tends to accumulate across the career, even in the face of a general decline in sociability. The study also uncovers gender differences in these social capital trajectories that are linked to the distinct life experiences of men and women.     

How social ties transcend class boundaries? Network variability as tool for exploring occupational homophily

The research on social network analysis established the existence of class homophily, the tendency that personal networks are homogeneous in the class sense, as one of the governing patterns. This is explained via two main mechanisms: choice homophily and induced homophily. But the literature focused less on the question how can class boundaries be transgressed and what are the channels of class heterophily. This paper explores class heterophily on Croatian data acquired through position generator, which measures social capital (resources captured in social relations) by exploring the range of different occupational positions which are accessible to an individual (extensity index). Network variability is thereby taken as proxy for class composition of personal networks. The paper concludes that that political participation and sociability enable cross-class ties, since this offers an opportunity to meet and befriend people from all walks of life; and that people on the middle of the social hierarchy have the most diverse social networks. The hypotheses that social mobility can represent a vehicle for class heterophily; and that class heterophily is more pronounced in smaller settlements, where society networks show more overlap between social circles; were confirmed only partially, and require further investigation. These findings concern class boundaries related to the notion of choice homophily. As for induced homophily, the paper concludes that here too the boundaries are not watertight, as cultural omnivores have a wider range of class contacts.     

The Mitigating Effects of Social and Financial Capital Resources on Hardships

Social and financial capital resources contribute significantly to socioeconomic outcomes. However, insufficient attention has been given to how these resources may mitigate potential socioeconomic setbacks and differ for gender and class groups. In our study, most of the interviewees with hardships had access to social and financial capital resources. The few with insufficient access were working class. Women accessed financial capital resources to overcome hardships more than men, whereas men were more likely to use social capital resources. Access to the resources helped ensure that almost all of the individuals in this study did not suffer the full consequences of their hardships. The hardship itself was of less importance than having access to social and financial capital resources.     

Rethinking Occupational Integration

This paper uses US Census data from 1970 to 1990 to focus on “integrated” occupations—those in which men and women are approximately equally represented. We focus on the extensive variability that exists across these nominally integrated occupations, specifically their social demography and the paths by which they reach compositional sex equity. We also examine the link between occupational integration and race/sex succession, and explore the earnings consequences of working in mixed occupations. Our findings suggest that integration means quite different things at different levels of the occupational hierarchy and for the women and men integrating sex-atypical occupations. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Anaheim, CA, August 2001.