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.     

“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.     

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?     

Separating age,period, and cohort effects in white U.S. fertility, 1920–1970

Four models are developed to describe the odds transformation of period- and age-specific fertility rates as products of age, period, and cohort effects. These are applied to data for white U.S. women age 15–44 from 1920 to 1970, with equal weights given to each rate. All models which include age fit subsets of the data extremely well. Per effect, the incorporation of periods improves the fit much more than the incorporation of cohorts. It is shown that first differences are invariant in two-effect models, and second differences are invariant in the three-effect models.     

Relation contents in multiple networks

Distinctions among kinds of relations (friendship, advice, intimacy, and so on) are typically ad hoc in empirical research. These ad hoc distinctions among relation contents can be expected to increase the likelihood of equivocal research conclusions. We develop three ideas indicating how standard, well-known, network models of relationship form can be used to clarify relationship content. (a) We begin with an idea for recovering the semantic context in which a relation content occurs. This context is cast as a network of tendencies for contents to be confused for one another and the form of this network—dissected with network models of relation form—holds insights into the ways in which relation contents are understood in a study population. (b) The network concept of structural equivalence is used to define content domains composed of specific relation contents that are substitutable for one another in described relationships. (c) The network concept of network prominence is used to define the ambiguity of contents in described relationships. The proposed perspective is analogous to a linguistic componential analysis of relation content.     

Canonical analysis and optimal criterion validity scaling

This article suggests methods for forming linear composites which will have either optimum (maximum) criterion validity or an optimum ratio of valid to reliable variance. These methods may be of interest to researchers whose data contain substantial systematic but invalid components. These techniques are formally related to canonical correlation analysis, and the output from standard canonical correlation computer programs can be directly used in forming the composites.     

Cohorts,education, and the evolution of tolerance

Normative and social structural explanations for changes in tolerance are tested using racial attitude items from 11 surveys between 1958 and 1978. Over the 20 years, while there were changes in the overall levels of racial tolerance, there were also changes in the upper and lower ends of a tolerance spectrum which differentially depended on cohort and educational effects. Regardless of the position in the tolerance spectrum, most of the change in racial attitudes resulted from across-the-board changes in all cohort and educational groups. The most racially conservative end of the spectrum was slightly eroded by increased educational attainment in the population, while the most racially liberal position was somewhat advanced by cohort replacement. In the final analysis, the normative perspective demonstrated the greater potential for applications to other, more complex, configurations of tolerance.     

Women's employment patterns and occupational achievements

This paper suggests that employment patterns and occupational advancement are related: Those less extensively and less continuously employed will have less investment in human capital, fewer opportunities to move to higher positions in the occupational structure, and, consequently, less gain in occupational rewards over the work life. Here National Longitudinal Survey data for women 30 to 44 years of age in 1967 are used to examine the effects of women's employment experience on their status gains from their career beginnings to 1971. A small but significant effect of employment experience on status gain is found for whites, but not for nonwhites.     

Some models of response uncertainty for panel analysis

Data of L. M. Wiggins from three-wave panels, each with a single dichotomous response, illustrate the use of models with response probabilities that vary over occasions or over individuals, or neither, or both, with a “no interaction” combination of the two being specified for the last case, which can also be derived from the Rasch measurement model. Models more complicated than these, allowing for changes in individual parameters (interaction of occasions and persons) or serial dependence of responses are considered when the Rasch-type model does not adequately describe the data.     

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.     

Recursive models for categorical data

Standard methods for recursive models with continuous endogenous variables are extended to models with categorical endogenous variables. The concept of a reduced-form equation is generalized in a natural way to cover nonlinear regression functions and, in particular, models with categorical endogenous variables. Maximum-likelihood estimation and asymptotic chi-square tests are described. Two numerical examples are presented: a linear recursive two-equation model for all-categorical data, and a combined linear and logit three-equation recursive model with both categorical and continuous endogenous variables. Limitations of the present work and directions for further extension are noted.     

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.     

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.     

Household migration and the labor market position of married women

The present paper conceptualizes labor force participation among U.S. wives as both a determinant and consequence of household migration. A theoretical justification is provided for decomposing these relationships by occupational position of the wife. Applying log-linear models to data from the 1970 One-in-a-Thousand Public Use Sample, we corroborate previous research in that, on the average, the likelihood of interstate migration between 1965 and 1970 was greatest among families in which the wife was not employed prior to the move. However, among employed wives, those classified as professionals or managers were also found to accentuate the probability of household migration, particularly if the husband was not employed in 1965. The implication is that all types of employment by the wife need not limit family mobility as previous studies have suggested. Although migration was found to have a disrupting effect on the continuity of employment among most wives, this effect was most in evidence among wives employed in blue collar occupations. The data suggest the need for a careful reappraisal of traditional economic notions of migration, particularly as they apply to married women.     

Comparing measures of homicide trends: Methodological and substantive differences in the Vital Statistics and Uniform Crime Report time series (1933–1975)

Several Uniform Crime Reports (FBI) and Vital Statistics (NCHS) homicide time series for the United States, 1933–1975, are compared with respect to (a) definitions and collection procedures used; (b) differences in estimating procedures; and (c) substantive differences that result from use of either series. Among the findings from this investigation are that: (1) the sampling procedures employed by the NCHS appear to be superior to those of the FBI; (2) the FBI time series most commonly employed by researchers is discontinuous prior to 1958 due to revision procedures which were instituted at that time. Analyses over time periods which began prior to this year should employ a more accurate FBI time series which is published by the Office of Management and Budget (1973). (3) The specific time period under study may lead to different substantive conclusions with different indicators; (4) the results of statistical analyses of structural equation models contained herein indicate that while the difference is not generally statistically significant, the deterrent effect of execution is consistently estimated to be greater with the Vital Statistics series. This finding has important policy implications if estimates of the number of lives saved by executing prisoners are projected and utilized by policy makers. (5) Neither series indicates serious problems of autocorrelation of disturbances with the exogenous variables employed here; and (6) use of either series for the period after 1949 appears to produce the same substantive results.     

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.