Hope for the Mobility Ratio

Abstract

Macdonald's criticism of structural models of mobility is empty because it denies ideas or theories a place in model con'struction. Specifically, equivalent models proposed by Macdonald do not meet criterion of minimal asymmetry that was applied in selection of models for British and American mobility tables. Under certain conditions, equivalent models meet symmetry criterion, but these conditions do not apply to examples discussed by Macdonald. Also, he exaggerates usefulness of odds-ratios in formulating models for non-ordered data, and he proposes an empirical revision of Featheman-Hauser model of mobility to first occupations that is less appealing than original model. Hope's criticism of new mobility ratio rests on an illogical comparison between Featherman-Hauser model and various saturated models of mobility table. Also, his commenta y makes erroneous statements about relationship between FeathermanHauser model and their criticisms of Blau and Duncan and about relationship between that model and Goodman's quasi-independence models. Macdonald's commentary on structural models of mobility table is both instructive and cautionary, but I disagree with much of it. I wrote some time ago that Any number of models may imply same set of oddsratios, and in this sense they will be equivalent. One such model may be transformed into another by multiplicative rescaling (b, 453). Macdonald cites this passage as point of his note, but he questions whether the force of known has been attended to. I believe it has, but Macdonald ignores relevant features of my several published analyses of occupational mobility classifications. In this note I will show how Macdonald's criticism *This research was carried out with support from National Institute for Mental Health (Grant No. 6275) and National Science Foundation (Grant No. SES-8010640) using computational facilities of Center for Demography and Ecology at University of WisconsinMadison, which has core support from National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant No. 5876). I thank Peter Mossel and Peter Dickinson for assistance in computation. I thank Richard T. Campbell for comments on a draft of this note. I thank John H. Goldthorpe, Robert D. Mare, Michael T. Sobel, Aage 8. Sarensen, and Halliman H. Winsborough for their advice. The opinions expressed herein are those of author.