Structure and process in occupational mobility

The distinction between structure and process in occupational mobility has been a dominant theme in contemporary research. While successive attempts to “solve” the structure/process dilemma have typically focused on new methodological procedures, we emphasize the conceptual issues underlying the distinction as a basis for further analysis. We introduce a simple two-stage model for the specification of mobility structure and process and use this model to evaluate current methodological “solutions” to the analysis of mobility.     

A canonical approach to assessing occupational mobility matrices

This paper develops a summary measure of occupational persistence which does not require translating the occupational categories into status scale scores. The measure is based on the mean of the squared canonical correlations extracted from a general mobility matrix. The procedure is employed to assess the impact of rapid regional economic diversification on the movement of labor within the occupational structure.     

Trends in occupational mobility in Hungary under socialism

Sociologists have long been interested in the impact of social, economic, and political changes on societal openness. Among other questions, they have asked whether the transition from a preindustrial agrarian society to an industrial socialist state creates more opportunity and equality. Using recent developments in loglinear modeling, this paper tests competing theories about temporal change in social mobility in Hungary in the past half-century. While occupational persistence declined significantly between older cohorts of men and women, the decline slowed or halted in recent cohorts. This suggests that a process of restratification occurred after the socialist revolution. Gender differences in mobility are also prominent. On the one hand, women are less likely than men to enter their fathers' occupational class. On the other hand, women's occupational destinations are more strongly determined by occupational origins. Furthermore, there are significant gender differences in occupational opportunities.     

Problems of concept and measurement in the comparative study of occupational mobility

This paper argues that, despite a great deal of research on the topic, we have almost no firm knowledge about societal differences in the rates, patterns, and processes of occupational mobility. Insufficient attention has been paid by previous researchers to the problem of standardizing the measurement of occupational status. As a result, the paper demonstrates, existing cross-national comparisons of mobility are virtually invalid. A Standard International Occupational Prestige Scale developed by the author is proposed as a basis for valid cross-national comparison. Properties of the scale are discussed and results achieved with the scale are compared to those based on other occupational scaling procedures.     

Gender differences in the impact of job mobility on earnings: The role of occupational segregation

In recent years, researchers have begun to explore the extent to which the impact of switching firms (inter-firm mobility) on wages varies between men and women. Using data from the NLSY79 from 1979 to 2012, this paper extends existing research by exploring how occupational segregation and individual level factors contribute to gender differences in the impact of voluntary inter-firm mobility on wages. The paper also examines how patterns vary depending on education level. Findings suggest that men without a college education receive greater wage gains from voluntary inter-firm mobility than similarly educated women although there is no overall gender difference for individuals with a bachelor's degree. The wage returns to voluntary inter-firm mobility for both men and women increase as a function of the male representation in the occupation. For individuals without a college education, the male premium to voluntary inter-firm mobility is largest in highly male dominated occupations. However, women with a bachelor's degree employed in highly male dominated occupations use voluntary inter-firm mobility to narrow the gender wage gap.     

Assumptions of social mobility research in the U.S.: The case of occupational status

This paper examines the theoretical and empirical basis for common rank-orderings of occupational roles by raters throughout the world. From an illustrative comparison of occupational stratification in Australia and the United States we conclude tentatively that (1) commonalities in the socioeconomic characteristics of occupational roles provide the basis for interplace consistencies in “prestige” scores, (2) the structure of occupational mobility in the U.S. and Australia is largely similar, (3) this similar structure of occupational stratification manifests a common socioeconomic process which defines a (the?) major component of occupational mobility in capitalist, industrial (only?) societies. We infer that “prestige” scores for occupations are fallible estimates of the socioeconomic statuses of occupation, within the context of mobility processes in (at least) the U.S. and Australia.     

Career mobility and job flocking

Flocking is oftentimes used to metaphorically describe social behavior. Do people actually flock in a way that avian species do? This paper develops a purely ecological mechanism for explaining similarity in human behavior by distinguishing between social networks of person-to-person ties and ecological networks of ties of observability. I test the “information center hypothesis” [Ibis 115 (1973) 517] from bioecology on the career mobility of professional managers who all graduated from the same university. In this case, spatial proximity in birds is replaced with sociodemographic homophily on an acquired status characteristic among persons. The results indicate that homophilous individuals exchange information about a favorable destination state by ecological ties of observability, that is, they follow the career mobility of fellow alumni and “flock” along with them.     

Ability and mobility: The relative influence of skills and social origin on social mobility

The recent PIACC data offer us the first ever opportunity to identify the relative salience of abilities versus social origin in comparative social mobility research. Sampling 21 countries, we identify the degree of meritocratic selection by estimating the relative influence of social origin versus individual cognitive and social skills. We pay particular attention to the possibility of skills combinations as regards both upward and downward mobility. Social skills may compensate for weak cognitive abilities, or vice-versa; and what are the added effects of commanding strong skills on both counts? This is, as far as we know, the first time that comparative mobility research has examined such skills-complementarities. As in previous research we, too, uncover a significantly more egalitarian mobility pattern in the Nordic countries. This however obtains also for Canada and the Netherlands. A unique feature of Scandinavia is its asymmetric profile: significant upward mobility for those of low social origin, but surprisingly little downward mobility among those of privileged origins. Contrary to expectations, this cannot be ascribed to skills compensation. We find, however, that social skills play an important role for upward mobility among low-SES sons.     

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.     

澳大利亚个税减免抵扣政策对我国个税改革的启示

文章针对我国个税征收制度中减免抵扣政策目前存在的一些问题,围绕个税费用扣除和税款抵消政策,介绍和分析澳大利亚个人所得税征收管理的经验。     

收入与居民幸福感关系的中国验证——基于绝对收入与相对收入的分析

本文基于中国综合社会调查2006年的数据,引入了绝对收入和相对收入变量,运用有序概率估计法,实证地研究了收入和幸福感之间的关系。研究显示:不管是否考虑相对收入,绝对收入对幸福感的影响作用都很大,考虑相对收入后,绝对收入的这种影响作用有所减弱。相比较而言,以平均收入衡量的相对收入对幸福感的影响要强于绝对收入。收入的相对变化情况以及对未来收入情况的预期会显著影响人们的幸福感水平。     

Models of social mobility

Properties of measures and models of social mobility are analyzed in relation to the conceptualization of mobility. Two main objectives of mobility research are identified. One is the study of determinants of occupational achievement, the other is the study of mobility as a characteristic of social systems. It is shown that the realization of both objectives is hindered by a failure of commonly used models and measures of mobility to separate out the various individual and structural factors responsible for mobility.     

提高低收入阶层收入 夯实健康发展之基

在我国国力繁荣的背后,存在一支庞大的低收入阶层队伍,这不仅有违社会公正,而且也不利于经济社会健康发展.综合运用各种政策措施,提高低收入阶层的收入水平,不仅有利于维护社会稳定,而且对建设全面小康社会也有深远的意义.     

Parental family income and the socioeconomic attainment of children

Like others before us using different data, we find significant effects of parental family income on the completed schooling and wage rates of adult children using intergenerational data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We explore various hypotheses regarding these effects, finding substantial support for the economic hypothesis that income, regardless of its source, is invested by parents in their children; mixed support for the hypothesis that fathers serve as role models for their sons; and no support for the welfare dependency hypothesis. Rather than serving as positive role models, working mothers appear to have significantly less successful sons.     

Socio-economic effects of relative income and relative cohort size

A nonlinear three-stage least-squares technique is used to estimate a four-equation model in which age-specific fertility, marriage, divorce, and female labor force participation rates are the dependent variables. In addition to a range of explanatory variables, two proxies for the Easterlin hypothesis are tested within the model, one measuring relative income and the other measuring relative cohort size. Findings indicate that the Easterlin proxies, while not statistically significant in all cases, help to explain time-series movements in various socio-economic variables in the postwar United States.     

社会流动的反思

改革开放以来,中国社会结构的重大变化之一就是形成了大规模、多层次的社会流动。这给社会稳定的维持带来了诸多难题,但同时也具有消除平均主义、在社会成员中间造成压力和动力、促进资源合理配置、形成滴漏效应、缓解因社会差异引致的社会矛盾等多重效应,使社会稳定本身经受了考验。从未来看,社会流动表现出频繁化、规范化、地区化、全球化等重要趋势,这是值得注意的影响社会稳定的新因素。     

Buffering income loss due to unemployment: Family and welfare state influences on income after job loss in the United States and western Germany

This article analyzes how the family and the welfare state influence household income trajectories after job loss in the United States and in western Germany. Drawing on panel data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), I study the income buffering effects of the family and the welfare state in the short an in the long run after job loss. I demonstrate that household income trajectories after job loss in the two countries are similar for couple households. However, men in the United States rely relatively more on family resources to overcome income loss, whereas German men’s incomes are secured mostly by the welfare state. Women’s unemployment in both countries is mainly buffered by their partners’ higher earnings. Because single households have no access to family support, they face much higher losses in the United States than in Germany. I also show that the more generous German welfare state triggers less private self-help in the form of increased labor force participation on the part of women when their partners lose their jobs. Over time, the family has become more important in buffering incomes after job loss in the United States which smoothed men’s and roughened women’s income trajectories in couple households. In Germany, worsening re-employment chances increased income losses in the long run after job loss.     

收入分配与制度变迁关系分析

不同经济集团之间利益关系的调整是制度变迁的主要动因 ,收入分配是利益关系调整的主要方式。我国 2 0多年的改革开放使不同的经济集团收入差距增大 ,突出的是国家与地方利益、城乡利益、区域利益、政府工作人员和群众利益。调整利益关系可以减少制度维护成本 ,促进经济持续发展     

现行企业所得税纳税筹划策略探微

为落实河北省委七届六次全会精神,省政府制定了《关于进一步加强民营经济发展的意见》。从目前看,我市民营经济在"十一五"期间有了长足发展,为全市经济和社会发展做出了重要贡献。要使民营经济大发展、快发展,必须进一步优化民营经济发展环境,全面落实民营经济优惠政策,引导民营经济上档升级,改善民营经济管理,加强民营队伍自身建设。