Psychological and cultural factors in the process of occupational achievement

An eight-equation model embodies the hypothesis that cultural differences among ethnic-religious groups give rise to differences in psychological dispositions, which, though not directly observable, influence occupational achievement, directly or via educational attainment, while being subject to feedback from one or the other of these endogenous variables. Dispositions are reflected in three fallible indicators, constructed from items in a survey interview of native white men in the Detroit area; the survey also secured socioeconomic measures and an estimate of intelligence. The model is block recursive and over-identified. Parameter estimates are secured by a sequence of ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares procedures, after solving out the structural equations to eliminate the unobservable variables. Numerical results do not strongly support the "Protestant Ethic" theory of achievement, but do suggest that the influence of education on occupation is mediated by motivational as well as cognitive and institutional factors.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34086/1/0000367.pd

Meaningful regression and association models for clustered ordinal data

Many proposed methods for analyzing clustered ordinal data focus on the regression model and consider the association structure within a cluster as a nuisance. However, often the association structure is of equal interest, for example, temporal association in longitudinal studies and association between responses to similar questions in a survey. We discuss the use, appropriateness and interpretability of various latent variable and Markov models for the association structure and propose a new structure that exploits the ordinality of the response. The models are illustrated with a study concerning opinions regarding government spending and an analysis of stability and change in teenage marijuana use over time, where we reveal different behavioral patterns for boys and girls through a comprehensive investigation of individual response profiles

TRENDS IN OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY BY RACE AND SEX

Employed h.1ack and white women have not enjoyed the sallie intercohort imp.t:ovements in occupational status as have men between 1962 and 1972. While employed men of both races experienced net shifts into higher status whiteand blue-collar jobs, with noticeable redistribution into salaried professions and managerial ranks and exits from self-employment in these occupation groups, employed women have made more localized shifts from private household service and into other services, clerical work, and the salaried professions. Marked intercohort increases in white female labor force participation is duplicated by younger but not older blacks. Relative to men of the same race, white fe~ males,have gained employment in those occupations vacated'by men and solidified their concentration in clerical jobs. Black females appear more able to compete with black men for occupations, as sexual inequality is lower among blacks than whites. tihile both racial and sexual inequalities have decreased between 1962 and 1972, sexual inequality is greater at each period and arises largely from different mobility matrices which allocate substantial percentages of women from every origin category to roles outside the regular labor force and to restricted employment locations within it. Occupational inequality between the races is lower among women than among men, although racial differences in intergenerational mobility and n9t social origin handicap black women from gaining higher status employment, while transferring larger proportions of white women out of the regular labor force. Despite substantial popular commentary on role differentiation and uurd ()ooonomi.c i nequa1ities between the sexes in the United States, it is only recently that empirical research has documented their extent and details (Suter and Miller, 1973; Carter, 1972; DeJong et aL, i971, Tyree. and Treas, 1974). This lacuna between speculation and fact arose from a lack of reliable data for broad cross-sections of men and women in comparable social circumstances (e.g. marital status, age, color), coupled with a probable lack of interest in the socioeconomic plight of females

Structure and predictive power of intraindividual variability in heath and activity measures

Intraindividual variability has been shown in many studies to be well structured over time and capable of predicting a wide range of behaviors. This study provides analyses of weekly variations of health and activity messurements in a sample (N = 52) of elderly persons (mean age = 77.5, SD = 7.2). The three main goals and results entailed: 1. Assessing the reliable nature of a health and an activity factor through a metric invariant confirmatory factor model; 2. Assessing the independence of intraindividual variability from level information and showing that the amount of intra-person variability during the first and second half of data collection correlate very highly; 3. Showing that intraindividual variability information of health and activity scores is superior to level information in predicting mortality