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.     

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.     

Sex and marriage of raters in the evaluation of occupations

The evaluation of occupational prestige ratings obtained from different subgroups within the same society has been shown to be remarkably similar (Reiss, A. J., Jr., Duncan, O. D., Hah, P. K., and North, C. C., 1961, Occupations and Social Status, Free Press, New York; Svalastoga, K., 1959, Prestige, Class, and Mobility, Gyldendal, Copenhagen; Tiryakian, E. A., 1958, American Journal of Sociology 63 (January), 390–399). Our purpose is to explore how the gender and marital status of raters influence the evaluation of occupational prestige. Using more detailed data than heretofore available, we will reexamine the similarity between occupational prestige evaluations observed among female and male respondents. Models of the way in which characteristics of occupational incumbents, such as income and education, are constructed to explore possible differences in the ways in which male and female raters evaluate occupations. The results of this analysis by gender of rater will then be used to examine both the gender and marital status of raters.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Racial discrimination and the social organization of industries

This study investigates the relationship between several factors of the social organization of labor markets and racial discrimination during the late 1960s. Log-linear models are used to obtain indicators of the relative opportunities of black and white men to obtain different occupations across each of 38 industrial segments. We then examine the nature of the relationship between these indicators of discrimination and a number of aspects of industries suggested to be important by various theories of discrimination. The results indicate that relative black opportunities were favorably influenced by government employment, industrial and white collar (but not craft) unionization, and product market power, and they were adversely influenced by profitability and customer preferences for nonretail sales workers. Of particular interest is the finding that, contrary to the hypothesis derived from neoclassical economics, market power had a positive effect on black opportunities.     

Bringing the cops back in: A study of efforts to make the criminal justice system more responsive to incidents of family violence

This paper examines the ways in which the criminal justice system typically responds to incidents of violence between adult members of the same household and then using a three equation, nonrecursive time series model considers the impact of efforts in one locale to improve law enforcement practices. Three questions are addressed: (a) can the apparent underreporting of domestic violence by police be improved; (b) can the quality of information funneled from police to the District Attorney's office be enhanced; and (c) can the number of offenders held accountable for their actions be increased?     

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.     

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.     

Equality of endogamy: Statistical approaches

In research on assimilation through marriage or defining racial groups as castes or classes, it is important to be able to test the equality of endogamy of groups of differing sizes and sex ratios. A variety of proposed solutions all have major difficulties. Log-linear models constitute an improvement but still retain some undesirable properties, including an inability to deal with both the linear and quadratic dimensions of the relationship between group size and endogamy levels by focusing on one to the exclusion of the other. Moreover, in the context of studies of comparative analysis of racial groups it is handicapped by providing inconsistent results for uncollapsed categories when other groups are combined.We recommend instead the weighted least-squares methodology both to test for statistical significance of differences in endogamy and to rank racial or ethnic groups according to their degree of endogamy. This method incorporates both the linear and quadratic components influencing the diagonal frequencies in marriage studies. Linear effects (see Table 2) are stronger when endogamy is high, and quadratic effects (see Table 3) are stronger when endogamy is low, although in general both are present together. Furthermore, this approach permits separate calculation of endogamy levels by sex and provides a test to ascertain when separate statistics should be computed. It is relatively free from biases in terms of the amount of “extra credit” given smaller groups, and is invariant when categories are combined. Conditional kappa values can be utilized to judge whether a racial group was relatively closed or open (compared to other groups) and to analyze the impact of the structural characteristics of group size and sex ratio on endogamy.In one area log-linear models retain an advantage over GSK-based analyses. The former have been employed to examine patterns of intermarriage via the quasi-symmetry, quasi-independence, and other tests based on off-diagonal elements. So far no comparable method has appeared for analyzing the intermarriage or exogamy behavior using GSK. Applications of log-linear models have been less successful in dealing with endogamy or inmarriage patterns.The comparison of degrees of endogamy by the GSK approach is based on direct measurement of endogamy by racial groups, allowing for calculation of standard error figures for each group's endogamy value. The ability of the GSK method to accomplish the above—as well as provide kappas which are invariant under group collapsing, tests of equal endogamy (by sex if necessary), and a test of marginal homogeneity—may be unique.Our recommendation is that in future discussions, involving comparisons of endogamy among several populations, conditional kappas and their standard errors at the very least should be presented. The distinction between male-oriented, female-oriented, and balanced conditional kappas, as well as the use of formal tests of endogamy, homogeneity, and marginal homogeneity permits examination of important population issues. The broad applicability of these techniques derives from their provision of a basis for comparing endogamy levels, since they produce consistent results for unaggregated data regardless of how minor or intermediate groups are combined. Such analyses are fundamental for gaining a more basic insight as to whether social and cultural factors, legal discrimination, or the basic structural elements of group size and sex ratio have greater influence on assimilation or the degree of closure in racial groups in the Americas.     

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.     

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.     

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.