Economic, Family, and Ethnic Status: An Empirical Test

Abstract

IN The Social Areas of Los Angeles Shevky and Williams construct an urban typology based on three dimensions: economic status, family status, and ethnic status.' They have demonstrated the use of their typology as an analytic method for the study of certain aspects of the social structure of large cities by applying it to the 1940 census data for Los Angeles County. The unit of analysis is the census tract, and each tract population is typed with respect to its configuration of scores on the indexes of economic status, family status, and ethnic status. Since the original formulation of the method by Shevky and Williams, several minor methodological revisions have been made which permit the use of the typology in the study of different cities at the same time and the study of the same city at two different times.2 While later