Occupational Prestige and Its Correlates: A Re-examination

Abstract

Responses were elicited from 490 individuals representing six diverse groups concerning their evaluations of 30 occupations as to prestige and 20 different occupational traits. The derived prestige-trait relationships were very similar to corresponding data of four previous studies. In fact, the same prestige-trait relationships were “very high” or “highly” related in the present investigation as were found in a previous study by the authors. The leading correlates of prestige were: “regarded as desirable to associate with” (.95), “intelligence required” (.94), “scarcity of personnel who can do the job” (.93), “interesting and challenging work” (.91), “training required” (.91), and “education required” (.90). A comparison of the occupational attitudes among the sample's subgroups revealed a high consensus of trait and prestige evaluation.