Status Achievement and the Occupational Pyramid

Abstract

T HE disporportionate distribution of prestige statuses and individual qualifications gives rise in every society to a problem which seeks some institutionalized solution. The problem arises from the fact that there are always fewer positions of prestige than there are individuals who potentially are qualified to fill them. Prestige by its very nature, is enhanced by scarcity and supersubordinate relationships assume a pyramidal hierarchy, while individual abilities apparently are distributed in a form approximating the bell shaped normal probability curve. Unless some means of life satisfaction is afforded those in the lower positions of the status hierarchy, discontent and frustration manifested in aberrant behavior and culminating in change in the social relationships may be expected with some confidence.' This relationship need not everywhere and at all times remain a problem. Primitive societies which have a minimal division of labor, in great measure, can escape the dilemma. In small, nonindustrial cultures office may be rotated or selected by lot or divination. The larger, more complex, non-industrial cultures through ascription of status and indoctrination concerning one's proper position in the hierarchy have avoided considerable stress. In caste-like societies such as India where the relationships are supported in the religious institution the closed pyramidal structure has been sustained for many centuries. Societies using an aristocracy similarly have been able to maintain a well-ordered division of labor through ascription of status and such subjective measures as mutual recognition of the rights and privileges of status obligations. Such devices preclude the notion of competition for positions and permit considerable stability in the division of labor, particularly where occupancy of position is predicated on divine or mystical sanction. At the same time, in handicraft cultures a considerable amount of satisfaction and self-expression is afforded by the nature of the occupation itself which offers a medium for channelization of individual ability and uniqueness. With the advent of industrialization, however, the relationship between position and qualification has become both more complex and more difficult to resolve. The vast division of labor and specialization accompanying industrialization has greatly expanded the occupational hierarchy. Mechanization has relegated a large number of occupations to mechanical routine, depriving them of virtually all manipulative or artistic satisfaction. In addition, techniques of mass production have deprived many workers of their traditional position in the status hierarchy of the past, so that rather than an integrated unit in a mutually sustaining relationship, they became a mechanical appendage to the industrial process.2 Rapid technological change and recruitment of occupational position on the basis of technical criteria of efficiency made ascription of occupational role impractical, and the development of democratic values completed the transition to achievement of status. The development of the economic institution favored the stratification of classes in terms of relationship to the productive order and supply and demand on the labor market so that prestige was contingent upon wealth and status identified with occupational role in a highly competitive market.3