Dimensions of Educational and Occupational Attainment in Great Britain

Abstract

The usual analysis of status attainment has ignored important dimensions of both education and occupation and has consequently underestimated the role of education in the occupational attainment process. We examine four aspects of British educational attainment (years of schooling, type of school attended, examinations passed in school, and qualifications obtained) andfour aspects of occupations (prestige, authority, control, and earnings). The analysis is conducted for four ten-year age cohorts of British men. Findings include: (a) No single dimension of educational attainment suffices to represent the effects of education on occupation. (b) Different patterns of the educational attainment measures are important in explaining different dimensions of occupational attainment. (c) The degree to which educational attainment is important for occupational attainment depends on the dimension of occupational attainment considered. (d) The persistent importance of school type in explaining occupational outcomes suggests the importance of chartering in British education. (e) The full model varies greatly in its ability to explain occupational outcomes, indicating that alternative models will need to be constructed.