Some considerations concerning the functional form of earnings

The problem of choosing the correct functional form of earnings has plagued studies of social inequality and labor market segmentation. Although this choice has often been made on superficial grounds, the results presented in the current paper demonstrate that this choice has very significant implications for the empirical findings that emerge from the study of earnings determination. Four functional forms of earnings are compared: dollar earnings, earnings rank based on social perceptions as calibrated by P. Coleman and L. Rainwater (1978, Social Standing in America, Basic Books, New York) the natural logarithm of earnings, and the best-fitting power function transformation of earnings as estimated by the Box-Cox technique. Evaluation of a generalized earnings determination model on a sample of private sector employees produces very similar results across these four functional forms of earnings. More divergent results are obtained when the models are compared across subsamples based on class, economic sector, and gender. Significant contrasts between earnings coefficients across groups are much more likely when utilizing log earnings or the Box-Cox power transformation than when using either dollar earnings or perceived earnings. In addition, the contrasts observed for log earnings and Box-Cox earnings are frequently in the opposite direction of those observed for dollar earnings or perceived earnings. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for theoretical developments in the study of social inequality and labor market segmentation.     

Determinants of fertility levels and change among developed countries: 1958–1978

This article provides a multivariate cross-national test of the hypothesis that national population/family planning policies have effected levels, and changes in fertility in developed nations over the past two decades. Variation is assessed in the total fertility rates (TFR) in 1978, and in the change in these rates between 1958 and 1978, among thirty developed countries. Measures include socioeconomic development, divorce, percent in consensual unions, female labor force participation, abortion policy, and level of contraceptive use by married couples and, government population/family planning policy. Seventy percent of the variation in 1978 TFR is related to the percent contracepting, female labor force, and the population/family planning policy measures. These are the only measures with significant direct effects. A longitudinal analysis of 1958 to 1978 change in TFRs is also conducted. This model increases R² to 75%, and the three independent variables remain significant. Implications of these findings for policy makers interested in increasing or decreasing fertility rates are noted.     

A dynamic macro social indicator model of changes in marriage, family, and population in the United States: 1947–1974

This paper presents an integrated 21-equation model of how marriage, family, and population conditions, as indexed by macro social indicators, affect each other and are affected by other social, demographic, and economic forces. An opportunity structures theoretical paradigm is applied to the specification of dynamic structural equations for determining changes (both trends and cyclical fluctuations) in marriage formation and dissolution, family and household composition, fertility, mortality, population growth, and population distribution. The equations are estimated on annual national data for the United States during the post-World War II years 1947 to 1972, and then they are used to make conditional forecasts of the values of some of the endogenous variables for 1973 and 1974. It is found that the equations fit the observed data well, lack demonstrable autocorrelation of disturbances, and forecast the 1973 and 1974 values usually with less than 2% error. Strategies are sketched for further refining some of the equations, and it is suggested that this model should be integrated into a larger societal model in order to estimate some of the effects of changes in demographic phenomena on other social conditions.     

Do females necessarily have the same occupational status scores as males? A conceptual and empirical examination of the Duncan Socioeconomic Status Index and Nam-Powers Occupational Status Scores

Social Science researchers have advanced important yet somewhat contradictory conclusions regarding the different economic and occupational reward structures faced by men and women. Income and wage differences between men and women have been shown to be sizable and persistent throughout the occupational hierarchy. Conversely, gender differences in occupational status, commonly scaled by the Duncan Socioeconomic Index, have been shown to be small or nonexistent in most studies. In an attempt to investigate this incongruity, the present study undertakes a comparison of the Duncan SEI and the Nam-Powers Occupational Status Scores in an empirical study of the occupational position of white men and women in 65 large standard metropolitan statistical areas (SMSAs) in 1970. While the findings of earlier studies showing no gender differences in occupational status are for the most part replicated using the Duncan SEI, use of the Nam-Powers scores prompts a much different conclusion. Large status differences between men and women are indicated using this latter scale, differences which are very much in line with income differences commonly cited. We suggest that the Nam-Powers metric should be used instead of the Duncan SEI in studies of occupational status of women and men.     

Interorganizational resource networks: Formal patterns of overlap

In this paper, we analyze an interorganizational resource network involving three resources—information, money, and support-and a broad range of 73 organizations in a medium size American community. Mutuality is strongest for information flows, and weakest for money flows. “Multiplex” patternings—flows of two media in the same direction—are found for all three pairs of resources, while “exchange” effects—flows of two media in opposite directions—involving information and money, and information and support, but not money and support, are also indicated. Moreover, the tendencies toward symmetry in the information and support networks are accentuated in the presence of one another. The analysis suggests that information flows play a crucial role in conditioning the flows of the other resources, and that they may be a precondition to the establishment of more elaborate interorganizational networks.     

Body time and social time: Mood patterns by menstrual cycle phase and day of the week

Multiple regression analysis traces the effects of two time dimensions (body time as indexed by the female menstrual cycle, and social time as indexed by the calendar week) upon moods, in a prospective study of daily moods over a 40-day period. Positive moods peaked in the ovulatory phase and on weekends, while negative moods peaked in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. An individual difference analysis showed that women whose moods are responsive to the menstrual cycle are physically active, socially assertive, sexually orgasmic women for whom the maternal role is important.     

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.     

Durkheim and pierce on suicide and economic change

This paper is an attempt to build upon Pierce's important finding, a confirmation of Durkheim, that any form of economic disruption or change increases suicide. In this paper, certain aspects of Pierce's method are criticized. The analysis of an expanded and updated data set, using analytic techniques designed for time-series data, suggests that economic disruption per se is not as relevant to the suicide rate as are economic hardship and economic deterioration or improvement.     

Job-shift differences between men and women in the workplace

Until now causal analyses of male-female career differences have been based on the standard attainment model and have focused on differences in career outcomes, namely status and earnings. This paper departs from this practice by using the career life-cycle model of achievement as a framework for the analysis of sex differences in the job mobility experiences of management personnel of a large corporation. The paper focuses not on sexual differences in the level of career rewards, but on differences in the rate of job shifts as the career unfolds. The models are based on the mean-value function of a Poisson arrival process. The principal findings are: (1) Male and female job-shift regimes are similar in form and described by the mean-value function of a nonstationary and heterogeneous Poisson arrival process; (2) the parameters governing male and female job-shift regimes are significantly different; (3) parameter differences indicate sexual inequities with respect to the rate of return to productive resources, but not with respect to structural opportunities to shift; (4) for men and women alike, schooling increases the rate of job shift, while labor force experience prior to being hired and entry-level achievement decrease the rate of shift.     

Population growth and the birth squeeze

Birth squeezes result from an imbalance in the number of males and females in the childbearing ages, and can have a significant impact on the level and distribution of births. To measure the effects of a birth squeeze, the observed male and female age-specific birth rates were distinguished from the underlying fertility magnitudes, which reflect the mutual propensity of males and females of specified ages to have a child. The fertility magnitudes, readily expressible in terms of the birth rates, are nonetheless independent of the age-sex composition of the population, while the birth rates are affected by compositional changes. The two-sex Total Fertility Rate, TFR2, the average of the male and female TFRs, is advanced as a summary measure of fertility independent of the birth squeeze, and a simple index, U, is defined to measure the severity of the squeeze. Analyses involving stable population models, alternative population projections, and the birth squeezes found in contemporary populations documented the importance of the birth squeeze for studies of fertility. In particular, the size of the distortions introduced by the birth squeeze was seen as related to the level of fertility itself. In high-fertility populations, the birth squeeze depresses observed female age-specific birth rates, and thus conventional measures can significantly underestimate the fertility reduction needed to end population growth.     

Measurement of popular disturbance

This paper has identified some points of convergence in the works of Sorokin, Tilly, and Gurr regarding the measurement of popular disturbance and has adopted their three-dimensional approach based on size, duration, and intensity. In criticizing past studies which used an incident as the only unit of data coding, it has been argued that a disturbance can be decomposed into a series of action phases. It has also been proposed that the intensity of a given mode of action can be empirically measured by computing its probability of causing human injuries, police arrests, and property damage. Finally, it has been suggested that the overall magnitude of a disturbance incident is measurable as a sum total of action phase magnitudes each of which is computed by combining size, duration, and intensity of the phase into a summary index.     

Dynamic models and attainment in the workplace

The two most marked trends in recent stratification studies are: (1) the shift away from a statical approach to attainment and toward a dynamical representation of achievement, and (2) the shift away from the assumption that achievement is largely a matter of individual characteristics, and toward the view that achievement is the outcome of an employer-employee exchange of productive resources for earnings and status. This paper forges a link between these parallel trends by elaborating on previous formulations of dynamic models of achievement and applying the results to the analysis of earnings attainment in an internal labor market. The modeling section of the paper joins within a single framework the growing interest in ascertaining how a given structure of opportunity shapes achievement and in determining the different points in the career line at which individual background and resource variables impact attainment. Special attention is devoted to the problems facing researchers who wish to bring a dynamic conceptualization of achievement to cross-sectional or otherwise deficient data. Although the empirical application of the various models is largely meant to be illustrative, it is of interest in its own right because it goes substantially beyond previous efforts in this area.     

Sex similarities in occupational status attainment: Are the results due to the restriction of the sample to employed women?

Research on sex differences in occupational attainment suggests that working men and working women attain essentially the same mean level of occupational attainment and do so through quite similar processes. A possible explanation for these similarities is that the sample of working women contains an overrepresentation of successful women, since women who can afford not to work will stay out of the labor force unless they find a job commensurate with their education. This we define as a censoring problem. By extending a technique developed by Heckman, we can estimate the structural parameters for all women, regardless of current employment status. This procedure allows us to assess the impact of the censoring problem on women's occupational attainment equations.     

Theory Trimming

This paper attempts to show that the “Theory Trimming” technique makes little contribution to theory in sociology. A brief history of the technique is given, and several key assertions of its proponents are abstracted. These assertions are shown to be highly questionable. The general alternative to Theory Trimming is shown, and the relationship between Theory Trimming and more general orientations to research is discussed.     

On population comparisons using factor indexes or latent variables

Population comparisons of multivariate models using factor indexes or latent factors are demonstrated to be unsound with current methods of comparative analysis unless one is willing to assume a priori that all of the variances of the latent factors in a model are identical across all populations analyzed. This is an assumption that is probably only rarely found in comparative research. Without this assumption, comparisons are unsound regardless of whether model estimations are made from regression analysis or maximum likelihood techniques. A general method is suggested which proposes to make comparative analyses of factors possible without the assumption of equal variances across populations.     

Determinants of the timing of adult role entry

A growing body of research indicates that the timing of entry into adult roles has long-term consequences for individuals and society. At present, little is known about determinants of the timing of adult role entry. Based on data from a 15-year follow-up study of high school students originally surveyed in 1957–1958 and resurveyed in 1973–1974, this paper examines and compares the processes by which the ages at entry into the labor force, entry into marriage, and entry into parenthood are determined. The timing of adult role entry is hypothesized to be a function of (1) the duration of time spent in transitional roles, (2) the availability of the opportunity to enter an adult role, and (3) an individual's orientation to an adult role. Evidence supporting this conceptualization is presented for both sexes.     

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.     

Components of change in the number of female family heads ages 15 to 44, an update and reanalysis: United States, 1940 to 1983

We review the literature dealing with the various components of change in the number of female family heads and conclude that P. Cutright's (1974, Journal of Marriage and the Family 36, 714–721) four components of change in the number of ever-married female family heads can be usefully applied to a reanalysis of decade-by-decade changes in this quantity among white and nonwhite women ages 15–44, from 1940 through 1980. However, we substantially revise and update Cutright's (1974) original data. Our findings include the fact that while the relative importance of the various components of increases in ever-married female family headship vary from decade to decade, overall trends are fairly similar for white and nonwhite women. Moreover, the rapid rise between 1970 and 1980 in the number of white and nonwhite female family heads among the never-married (single) continued through the 1980 to 1983 period. A decade ago, Cutright (1974) predicted that a change in the number of female family heads from 1970 on would reflect little more than changes in the numbers of ever- and never-married women ages 15–44. We discuss this inaccurate prediction and conclude that wishful thinking is a poor guide in forecasting the future.