Duncan Scale Research Articles

A standard international socio-economic index of occupational status

In this paper we present an International Socio-Economic Index of occupational status (ISEI), derived from the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO), using comparably coded data on education, occupation, and income for 73,901 full-time employed men from 16 countries. We use an optimal scaling procedure, assigning scores to each of 271 distinct occupation categories in such a way as to maximize the role of occupation as an intervening variable between education and income (in contrast to taking prestige as the criterion for weighting education and income, as in the Duncan scale). We compare the resulting scale to two existing internationally standardized measures of occupational status, Treiman's international prestige scale (SIOPS) and Goldthorpe's class categories (EGP), and also with several locally developed SEI scales. The performance of the new ISEI scale compares favorably with these alternatives, both for the data sets used to construct the scale and for five additional data sets.

Educational Differentiation and Status Attainments: The Community College Controversy

Abstract Based on the Parnes data, the author analyzes how community college attendance shapes adult socioeconomic attainment among a homogeneous age population. The sample consists of young men and women ten years after high school graduation. Socioeconomic returns to level and kind of education are analyzed utilizing insights offered by human capital theory. Type of first college entered is a significant variable in analyzing differences in earning ability even when holding constant variation in ability, socioeconomic background and college goal The rate of return to each additional year of education for four-year college entrants is 7.9 percent; for community college entrants, 5.4 percent. Type of college entered is also a significant variable in analyzing differences in occupational status again holding constant all other variables in the model The average status of four-year college entrants' jobs is almost 12 points higher on the Duncan scale than those of community college entrants. Community college entrance entails a wage and occupational penalty early in the life cycle that outweighs the opportunity cost of first entering a four-year college.

Sex, Educational Differentiation, and Occupational Status: Analyzing Occupational Differences for Community and Four-Year College Entrants

Based on the Fames data, the author analyzes how the differentiation of higher education into sectors affects current occupational status among a homogeneous age population. The sample consists of young men and women ten years after high school graduation. Past studies analyzing correlations between educational level and occupational status virtually ignore the effects of community college attendance. Most earlier work defines school quality solely in terms of per-pupil expenditures, but these studies fail to account for the complexity of the higher educational system in the United States today. My research shows that the type of first college entered is a significant variable in analyzing differences in occupational status, even when holding constant variations in ability, socioeconomic background, and college goal. The average status of four-year college entrants' jobs is almost 12 points higher on the Duncan scale than the status of community college entrants' jobs. Community college entrants suffer an occupational penalty, compared to four-year college entrants, even when controlling for years of education.

Sex, Schooling, and Occupational Status

Based on data from an 18-year follow-up of Wisconsin high school seniors, this paper describes the process of occupational achievement among men and women from labor market entry to mid-life. In contrast to several earlier studies, there are marked sex differences in the acquisition and maintenance of occupational status. The effect of post high school education on the status of first jobs is twice as great among men as among women, and the effect of the status of first jobs on that of current jobs is one-third greater among men than among women. Men gain an average of nine points on the Duncan scale betweentheir first civilian jobs and their jobs at age 36, but women lose an average of more than two points on the Duncan scale. At the same time, sex differences in occupational attainment are not all disadvantageous to women. First jobs of women are six points higher in status on the average than first jobs of men, and when the status of first jobs is controlled, the continuing influence of schooling on oc...

Prestige or Socioeconomic Scales in the Study of Occupational Achievement?

Current research on status attainment usually employs either a scale of prestige or of socioeconomic status to rank order occupation titles. Consistently, in the United States (and in limited international comparisons), correlations among variables in basic stratification models which rest upon data in the metric of socioeconomic status are higher than those reflecting occupational prestige. Earlier work advanced a substantive argument for this outcome to the effect that occupational stratification is fundamentally socioeconomic and not prestige mobility. Here we underscore the substantive argument by ruling out two artifactual explanations for these higher correlations. Neither the differential metric properties of the two scales (e.g., the longer "tails" of the Duncan Socioeconomic Index than the NORC prestige scale) nor the component properties of the Duncan scale account for these correlational differences.

An expanded sociometric device for measuring personal effectiveness.

158 male and 80 females representing 4 fraternities and 3 sororities at a large state-supported university in the Southwest were administered Duncan's Personality Integration Reputation Test and 48 additional sociometric items. on the basis of their content validity and correlation with Duncan's scale, 30 of the 48 items were selected for a test of personal effectiveness. The correlation of the total of these 30 items with Duncan's scale was .92 for males and .90 for females. The 30 items plus 6 from Duncan's scale, gave similar rs (.93, .91). The major advantage of the new scale lies in greater appeal to users who might be prejudiced against a 6-item instrument. Estimates of reliability and validity are needed.

Reliability of Duncan's personality integration scale.

Investigations were conducted to determine the reliability of Duncan's Personality Integration Scale. The two types of reliability investigated were test-retest stability and intersex congruence. The results indicated that Duncan's Scale possesses test-retest reliability for both male and female populations but lacks intersex congruence.