| Abstract: | Studies of occupational mobility have generally ranked occupations on the basis of their socioeconomic status level or prestige component to measure movement between jobs. Two potential problems may limit the usefulness of that approach for racial and ethnic minority groups: (1) the relationship between occupation and socioeconomic status may not be the same as for the majority group, and (2) minority group members are more likely to be clustered at the low end of both socioeconomic and prestige scales. Canonical correlation analysis requires no prior ranking of occupations, so we use it to investigate intergenerational and career mobility among a sample of Mexican Americans. The findings indicate that mobility among Mexican Americans is about as frequent as among the total population, but that the pattern of movement differs considerably. As a result, the relative status of occupations among Mexican Americans has changed over time and, consequently, socioeconomic status scales developed for the total population do not provide accurate assessments of mobility for Mexican Americans. This discrepancy is less noticeable for career mobility, indicating that among the latest generation of Mexican Americans, mobility patterns are becoming more similar to those in the rest of society. |
