Organizational boundaries and upward job shifts

Recent research has examined the role of organizations in the stratification system and the functioning of stratification systems in organizations. In this analysis, we examine the implications of organizational boundaries for upward job changes within and across organizations. To perform our analysis, we utilize a nonstationary, modified Markov model that allows consideration of individual and job heterogeneity. The data are life histories of a sample of U.S. males between the ages of 30 and 39. Our results indicate that organizational boundaries create two kinds of resources: (1) general resources, and (2) organization-specific resources. General resources have a positive effect on upward movement within and across organizational boundaries. Organization-specific resources have a positive effect on upward movement within organizational boundaries, and a negative effect on upward movement across organizational boundaries—a situation of great benefit to organizations.     

Some cross-population comparisons of family bias in the effects of schooling on occupational status

It is a truism of research on social stratification that the effects of socioeconomic or family background on educational attainment and adult success lead to biases in the simple regressions of occupational status (or other putative outcomes of schooling) on educational attainment. The present analysis compares findings of family bias in the effects of schooling on occupational status across samples of siblings drawn from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study and from Olneck's sample of brothers from Kalamazoo, Michigan. The comparative analysis shows that family bias in the effect of schooling on occupational status may be much less than is commonly believed and that very large samples may be needed to measure it reliably. Moreover, the analysis suggests that estimates of family bias are very sensitive to the specification of response variability in schooling. The analysis also illustrates some useful methods for cross-population comparison of structural equation models.     

Psychophysical measurement and the validity of the modern economic approach: A presentation of methods and preliminary experiments

The modern economic approach to human behavior and social interaction argues that people maximize the subjective theoretical quantity utility. This primary presupposition has resisted all empirical tests and a consensus has developed that it is unfalsifiable. A promising new approach to the problem is introduced in the paper through research on the psychophysical measurement of the marginal utility of money and commitment. The research reported here suggests that the utility function for money conforms to the power law and has an exponent of about .43. The paper also examines the advisability of broadening the utility function to cover social variables. An operationalization of the concept of commitment was examined using psychophysical techniques with the result that people appear to have utility for commitment, that a power function is involved, and that the exponent is in the vicinity of .36.     

Analyzing social processes: Life tables and proportional hazards models

A number of techniques useful in describing and modeling social processes are detailed. Emphasis is placed on the analysis of changes in categorical variables as they occur in continuous time. The procedures considered are mainly non-parametric, although parametric alternatives do exist when the appropriate distributional assumptions are met. Specifically, life tables and proportional hazards models are discussed and illustrated through an analysis of first live birth intervals for a sample of white American women. The generality of proportional hazards models is outlined by considering extensions of the basic model to include competing risks, time-dependent covariates, and repeatable events.     

The rescission of behaviors: Inconsistent responses in adolescent sexuality data

In longitudinal survey research, certain questions can be rescinded illogically. For instance, respondents who at Time 1 report having had sexual intercourse may at Time 2 report never having done so. This paper reports measurement techniques and analyses of these types of inconsistencies from an ongoing longitudinal adolescent sexuality project. Inconsistencies in intercourse, masturbation, and other sexual behaviors are reported and compared to rates from other studies and other less sensitive behaviors within the same study. Three conclusions are presented: (1) inconsistencies should be considered a natural part of any longitudinal survey process and should be incorporated into the response model; (2) inconsistency rates in these particular data support the contention that adolescent sexuality data of appropriate quality for analytical purposes can be obtained; and (3) inconsistency rates in fact contain substantive information concerning the processes under consideration.     

Some evidence concerning the value hypothesis of intergenerational status transmission: A research note

This paper reports some evidence bearing on the value hypothesis of intergenerational status transmission. The point of departure is the studies of Kohn (1969, Class and Conformity: A Study in Values, Dorsey, Homewood, Ill.) and Wright and Wright (1976, American Sociological Review, 41, 527–537) on the social class related value orientations called “self-direction” and “conformity.” Our research examines whether children's valuations along this dimension are associated with the valuations of their parents, as the value hypothesis would argue. Key associations consistent with the hypothesis are found although there is, overall, considerable variation in children's valuations not related to variation in the valuations of their parents. Implications of the finding for future examination of the value hypothesis are discussed.     

The use of nativity data to estimate ethnic characteristics and patterns

Until recently, nativity data for the first and second generations (the foreign stock) have been the primary source of census information on white ethnic groups in the United States. With the development of an ancestry item, it is now possible to deal with all generations regardless of birthplace. The 1979 Current Population Survey provides a rare opportunity to cross-tabulate the results obtained from each system in order to determine the degree of overlap in the populations and the extent to which inferences about the social characteristics of ethnic groups are altered. The degree of overlap varies enormously among groups, but the results show that inferences based on nativity data are fairly close to those that would be obtained with the use of the ethnic ancestry item. This is an encouraging result for researchers obliged to use nativity data in working with earlier censuses.     

Educational indicators and occupational achievement

Many sociological and economic studies assume that the variable, Highest Grade Completed in School, is by itself an adequate measure of people's education for the purpose of explaining their occupational achievement. Use of Highest Grade Completed as the sole measure of education has at least two major shortcomings. It assumes people have (1) learned the same amount of (2) the same thing in an academic year. Supplementary education indicators are identified and tested to see if they have a substantial impact on occupational prestige or earnings. Background social statuses and Highest Grade Completed are controlled for in this test. Only measures of subject matter studied in high school or college have a statistically significant relationship with occupational achievement net of Highest Grade Completed and social background variables. Highest Grade Completed is quite adequate in measuring the impact of education on occupational achievement without help from the measures of subject matter studied.     

Sexual inequality in the workplace: An employer-specific analysis of pay differences

This paper reports an analysis of employer-specific sex differences in the processes governing the salary attainment of personnel of a large company. The two dominant theories of inequality both view discrimination as the operative cause of pay differences, but locate the structural source of discrimination at different points in the employer-employee exchange space. The wage discrimination hypothesis asserts that the economic disadvantage of women issues directly from the pay practices of employers, with women receiving “unequal pay for equal work.” The crowding, or employment segregation, hypothesis asserts that inequality issues from the employment practices of employers; disparities in the allocation of jobs and promotions results in segregation along sexual lines, with women relegated to lower-paying positions. The findings show that both wage discrimination and sexual segregation of the company's job and rank structures contribute to inequality, but that the latter is more important. The implications for the issue of discrimination are briefly discussed.     

Correcting for ratio variable correlation: Examples using models of mortality

The major purpose of this paper is to examine one part of the ratio variable correlation problem, correlated denominators, using path models of young, middle-age, and older-age mortality, each with 11 sociodemographic and cause-of-death independent variables. The models are calculated using a traditional ratio approach and a residual variable approach for a sample of counties. The methodological discussion focuses on differences in coefficients for the two approaches in terms of significance, magnitude, and hypothesis support. It is concluded that the residual approach is worth pursuing as a viable statistical solution to the correlated denominators component of the ratio variable correlation problem.     

Race differences in middle class lifestyle: The role of home ownership

This paper examines race differences in two aspects of “middle class” lifestyle: home ownership and net worth. Home ownership indicates stability; and for older persons net worth is an important part of economic status. Data from the NLS studies of older men are analyzed. The major findings are: (1) while whites at any earnings level are very likely to own homes by ages 50–64, only at relatively high earning levels do blacks begin to approach the home ownership rates of whites; (b) the net worth of blacks is substantially lower than that of whites after adjusting for variables in a standard status attainment model; and (c) however, among home owners the race difference as well as effects of other variables are much smaller than for renters. This is attributed to forced saving through home ownership. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible sources of low home ownership rates and low net worth of blacks and the implication of these findings for the study of middle class status.     

On a dynamic response model of W. F. Kempf

Kempf's model was used by W. F. Kempf and P. Hampapa (1977, “Conditional inference for the dynamic test model,” in Mathematical Models for Social Psychology (W. F. Kempf and B. H. Repp, Eds.), Chap. 3, pp. 81–100, Wiley, New York) to analyze the cross-classification of responses to four items on sex typing of children's household chores from the 1971 Detroit Area Study. The model alters the simple Rasch measurement model for dichotomous items to include transfer effects, so that responses are allowed to be serially dependent (G. Rasch, 1966, “An individualistic approach to item analysis,” in Readings in Mathematical Social Science (P. F. Lazarsfeld and N. W. Henry, Eds.), pp. 89–107, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1980; Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests, expanded ed., Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago). Although Kempf and Hampapa did not find strong reason to reject the dynamic model, the present analysis indicates that it should be rejected in favor of a two-dimensional Rasch model.     

Reevaluating the uses of status: The case of earnings determination

Status and prestige variables and measures have been central to the sociological study of individual variations in income and other dependent variables for at least 2 decades. Yet theoretical and methodological rationales for the use of such variables in the explanation of income are problematic. This conclusion, along with some similar conclusions about other uses of status and prestige variables and measures, were reached after a review of Weberian, functionalist, and other prominent discussions of the uses of status/prestige in theory and research on income. It is suggested that an emphasis upon structural attributes of jobs is more promising than a continued emphasis upon evaluatory, status/prestige conceptions of jobs for effective theorizing about income determination. A quantitative analysis of earnings shows that income effects of a common measure of socio-economic status disappear in the context of a rudimentary structural model of income. It is concluded that social scientists should move on to use more varied attributes of jobs and exercise more caution in the use of status and prestige variables.     

Wage change in the late career: A model for the outcomes of job sequences

This paper elaborates a model for the outcomes of job sequences and illustrates its utility by an empirical analysis of the determinants of wage change for men in their late careers. We argue that job sequences represent the basic components of careers and that a focus on these sequences is useful for explaining the determinants of socioeconomic inequality over the life cycle. Our model permits us to estimate the effects on wage change of a wide array of personal resources and measures of the opportunity structure. We further assess how these types of factors differentially affect wage change for various patterns of labor market behavior and for blacks vs whites. Our empirical analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Middle-Aged Men suggests the importance of patterns of job sequences for wage change and for the explanation of racial differentials in career advancement.     

Economic and other determinants of annual change in U.S. fertility: 1917-1976

Decomposition of fertility into its age, period, and cohort components demonstrates the empirical importance of age and period. Of the two, less is known about the period dimension. A new measure of fertility, specific to race and birth order, is used to estimate the effects of annual change in unemployment, the marriage and unemployment rate, as well as annual change in contraceptive sterilization and change in the proportion of couples adopting the more effective (pill and IUD) methods introduced in the early 1960s, are all important determinants of fertility change, but their impact varies greatly by birth order.     

“Mainstreaming” content analysis in social science: Methodological advantages,obstacles, and solutions

The history of content analysis is reviewed and reasons for its continuing underutilization are identified. The technique's isolation from mainstream social science results in low-quality studies and methodological underdevelopment. Still, advantages of the method indicate it has great potential for social science. Specific suggestions are made for applying established research techniques to content analysis. Sampling, research design, reliability and validity assessment, concept operationalization, and related principles and techniques are illustrated with a content analysis study of religious belief popularization. The relative merits of coding manifest content versus latent, thematic analysis are assessed. Manifest characteristics can be coded more reliably but thematic indicators provide greater measurement efficiency in the example. Implications for computerized coding are discussed. Inference from communication texts and the value of empirically studying communication patterns for social scientific objectives are presented as complementing research on individuals and social structures.     

Changes in reinforcement contingencies and the disruption of social exchange

Social exchange, reinforcement, and equity theories suggest that several forms of change in social reinforcement contingencies should disrupt social interaction. A laboratory experiment compared the disruptive effects of three forms of contingency change on social exchange in the dyad: (1) the addition of an individual contingency as an alternative reward source, (2) reduction in the magnitude of rewards from social exchange, and (3) a change from equitable to inequitable exchange. All three forms of change were more likely to induce deviation than a control condition of no change. Of the three forms of change, contingency addition produced the most sustained disruptions and reward reduction the shortest disruptions; inequity was intermediate. The same rank order, although nonsignificant, was observed for probability of initial deviation. Subjects' responses to postexperimental questionnaires suggest that reward reduction and inequity produced the kinds of emotional responses predicted by exchange and equity theories, but these reactions do not appear to mediate the effects on deviation.