Inter-generational Occupational Mobility and Legislative Voting Behavior

Abstract

Few efforts have been made to investigate effects of upward occupational mobility on values and attitudes of political leadership groups. This study of 94 of 100 members of 1957 session of Wisconsin State Assembly, lower house of that state's legislature, provides somne support for hypothesis that upwardly mobile political leader tends to be more conservative his voting behavior than are politicians whose occupational statuses do not differ substantially from those of their fathers. It has beconme commonplace sociological analysis of status discrepancies not only to measure extent of social mobility societies, but also to assess effects or consequences of occupational-status movement terms of differential psychic adj ustment, attitudes toward minority groups, involvement labor unions, political values, and so forth.' The political sociologist is particularly interested social origins of political decisionmakers, their occupational patterns and mobility, and consequences of occupational mobility for their political belhavior.2 There is considerable empirical evidence to support notion that, electorate at large United States, those on move upward occupationally are inclined to be more politically conservative than those whose occupational status remains relatively stable. Lipset and Bendix, using data from a 1952 survey of national electorate, have shown that in America successfully mobile members of middle class are more conservative (that is, nmore often Republican) than those class members who are a social position comparable to that of their parents.3 Based upon a sample of young adults Cambridge, Massachusetts during 1952 presidential election, Maccoby and her associates found that upwardly mobile youth were more Republican than class from which they came.4 Data from a sample of business leaders United States indicated that those who had moved into business leadership from lower status occupations were less likely to be Democrats than those who were sons of upper and middle class parents.5 And Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee found that, a sample of voters Elmira, New York, during 1948 election, children who have 'moved up' world are more likely to vote Republican than those who have remained roughly their father's social strata.6 To what extent does an association between occupational mobility and political ideology hold true for political leadership groups as well as for population samples general? Janowitz has suggested that the conlsequences of mobility for political behavior should affect not only behavior and attitudes of various broad strata but also political behavior of leadership I For example, Seymour M. Lipset and Reinhard Bendix, Industrial Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960) ; Leonard Reissman, Class American1 Society (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 293-374; Peter M. Blau, Social and Interpersonal Relations, Americant Sociological Review, 21 (1956), pp. 290-295; Seymour M. Lipset and Joan Gordon, Mobility and Trade Union Membership, Bendix and Lipset, Class, Status and Power (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1953), pp. 491-500; and Bernard Barber, Stratificationt (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1957), pp. 356-477. 2 E.g., Donald R. Matthews, The Background of Political Decision-Makers (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1954). 3 Industrial Society, op. cit., p. 66. 4 Eleanor E. Maccoby, Richard E. Matthews, and Anton S. Morton, Youth and Political Change, Public Opinion Quarterly, 18 (1954), pp. 23-39. 5 Lipset and Bendix, Industrial Society, op. cit., p. 67. 6 In Votintg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 90. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.113 on Sun, 15 May 2016 05:56:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms INTER-GENERATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY 91 groups.7 The Americain legislature is an ideal context for an examination of hypothesis that upwardly mobile political leaders tend to be more conservative than those who have been occupationally immobile. American legislators tend very heavily to be recruited from middle and upper occupational strata, and are probably uniformly more mobile than their constituents.8 And social status has, at least one American legislative body, been shown to have had some independent effect on legislative votes.9 The present findings came from occupational and voting data for 94 of 100 members of 1957 session of Wisconsin Assembly, lower house of that state's legislature. Intergenerational assessments of mobility had to be used; each member's principal occupation, and hiis father's principal occupation were scored using North-Hatt-Reiss rating schedules.10 If discrepancy between member's and father's occupational score equaled ten points or more, member was classified as mobile; other members were classified as stable occu-