Occupational Achievement Research Articles

The Role of Occupational Achievement in Homeownership Attainment by Immigrants and Native Borns in Five Metropolitan Areas

This article addresses the homeownership attainment of immigrants and native borns in five metropolitanareas: Los Angeles; New York; Washington, DC; Atlanta; and Philadelphia. The major questionfor analysis is the role of occupational achievement in shaping the attainment of homeownership forspecific cohorts between 1980 and 1990. This effect is estimated in addition to that of human capitalendowments, life cycle maturation, lengthening duration of U.S. residence, and earnings.We find that occupational achievement makes a significant contribution to homeownershipattainment,net of other factors, and that this effect is remarkably consistent across metropolitan areas, immigrantgroups, and birth cohorts. The analysis also unveils substantial differences in ownership trends betweenmetropolitan regions. Although immigrant groups attain lower levels of homeownership thannon-Hispanic whites who are native born, the rate of progress toward homeownership for immigrantsgenerally parallels that for young whites in the same metropolitan area.

Getting Ahead in the GDR

This paper deals with the returns to social capital in occupational attainment in the GDR, once a communist showcase. It examines the extent to which getting ahead in an industrial communist society depends on social capital, which by existing research was shown to be the case in agrarian communist and capitalist industrial societies. Industrial technology and a Marxist ideology supposedly both impede particularism, suggesting that social capital is not that important for getting ahead. In addition, the relationship between the use of and access to social resources is explored. Retrospective data from two random samples collected in 1992 and 1993 in Leipzig and Dresden have been used to test our expectations. Although universalism seemingly dominated the attainment process, as a person's education was more important than his father's resources, nearly half of the employed got their jobs through some informal channel. Yet, the use of informal resources only led to a better job if the contact person had high occupational prestige. Part of the influence of human capital on occupational achievement should be attributed to the effect of a person's social capital, i.e. a contact person with high prestige. Access to occupations through informal ties did not imply that these ties were used. Although one reached higher occupational ranks through weak ties (acquaintances), access through strong ties (friends or relatives) was crucial for finding a contact person with high prestige. This probably reflects the high damage potential of using illegal particularistic ties under communism. Using a high prestige contact person was far more important for getting a better job than having access to higher occupations.

The Effects of Volunteering on the Volunteer

JOHN WILSON [*] MARC MUSICK [**] I INTRODUCTION To most people, a is someone who contributes time to helping others with no expectation of pay or other material benefit to herself. However, this does not mean that volunteer work is of no consequence for the volunteer. Indeed, it is widely believed that helping others is as beneficial for the donor as it is for the recipient. Research studies show that most people do in fact hold the belief that helping others is a good way to gain fulfillment for yourself. [1] In this article, we review some of the research on the supposed benefits of volunteering and describe briefly some of the results of our own work in this area. We first examine the contribution volunteering is thought to make to a society's social capital, its supply of the generalized trust and norms of reciprocity that make democratic politics possible. Are volunteers more civic minded and more likely to take an active role in political life? Next, we examine the possible link between volunteering and leading the good life. Are vol unteers less likely to engage in anti-social behavior? We then consider the contribution volunteering might make to both physical and mental health. Is there any evidence to suggest that volunteering can make people healthier or contribute positive feelings of well-being? Finally, we examine the contribution volunteering makes to occupational achievement. Is there any empirical evidence to support the notion that volunteering is either a direct path to good jobs or indirectly provides the self-confidence and skills needed to secure good jobs or to do well in the jobs we have? II CITIZENSHIP For a number of reasons, the possibility that volunteering is useful for building and maintaining civil society--a sphere of activity where people feel free to organize groups, engage in public debate, and in which norms of mutual respect and toleration protect the voices of majority and minority alike--has recently been undergoing fresh scrutiny. Part of this renewed interest stems from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the task faced by newly democratizing countries trying to build, or re-build, the infrastructure of participatory politics. How do people acquire the skills and aptitudes necessary for the give-and-take of democratic government? Some of this renewed interest also stems from concerns expressed in established democracies that fewer and fewer people are taking the time to vote, run for local office, or support political organizations with their time and money. Ever since de Tocqueville's mid-nineteenth-century analysis of American democracy, it has been assumed that a healthy voluntary secto r is vital to the survival of democratic politics. [2] De Tocqueville believed that voluntary associations were essential intermediary bodies between the mass of individuals and their institutions of government. [3] Active membership in a voluntary association created the generalized trust--a trust that extends beyond the boundaries of kinship and friendship--on which democratic political life depends. If the habit of joining were allowed to die, so too would democracy. Robert Putnam, who found substantial variation in the performance of Italian governmental institutions across different regions, has recently revived this idea. [4] His explanation for this variation centered on the concept of social capital. Putnam defined social capital as features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions. [5] His theory, redolent of de Tocqueville, is that active membership in voluntary associations generates the trust necessary for people to organize effectively and act collectively. The associations need not be political to have this beneficial effect, although those that were organized horizontally, where members could easily participate in running the organization, would be more likely to produce it. …

Provisional Balances: Fathers' Perceptions of the Politics and Dynamics of Involvement in Family and Career Development

4. Christian Dunn is an undergraduate student, Department of Individual and Family Studies, University of Delaware.Contemporary literature often emphasizes the new culture of (LaRossa, 1988), highlighting care giving and nurturant interactions between fathers and their children (Robinson & Barret, 1986; Rotundo, 1985). Because work and family compete for a father's time and attention (Cohen, 1993; Lamb, Pleck & Levine, 1987; Levine & Pittinsky, 1997), a father's investment in paid employment can be portrayed as an escape from involvement at home (Hochschild, 1997). While this may be true in some cases, this view neither captures the complex interactions between the multiple roles that fathers fulfill as they care for the needs of their families nor the struggles men face in balancing career development and involvement as fathers.This qualitative study represents a selected portion of an open-ended, structured interview with 40 demographically diverse men ranging in age from 22 to 45 years (mean age 34.68 years, s.d. 6.88 years). Men were interviewed concerning their perceptions of changes in their life course and personality attributable to fathering. This report examines the balances between paternal involvement in child rearing, commitment to work, career trajectories, company policies toward father involvement in family matters, and men's perceptions of supports and obstacles to involvement represented in the interface between the home and the workplace. Of particular interest are fathers' perceptions of the dialectics of involvement in family and workplace.To qualify for inclusion in the sample, fathers could have children of any age and the children could be biological, adopted, stepchildren or fictive kin. The fathers could be either co-resident or living in another household. The sample represented diversity in ethnicity, education, occupational achievement and status, degree of paternal involvement in child rearing, and father's age at time of first child's birth. The average father in the sample had two biological children (mean = 1.98, s.d. .83). Ten of the forty men fathered a total of 19 stepchildren (range 1-4, mean 1.90 stepchildren per stepfather). The average age of firstborn biological children was 10.00 years (s.d. 6.23), and the average age at the time of men's transitions to fatherhood was 26.15 years (s.d. 5.03 years). For further demographic information, please refer to Table 1.Table 1. Demographic Characteristics SummaryAGE NUMBER20-25 526-30 631-35 1036-40 941-45 10ETHNICITY NUMBERAfrican American 8Caucasian 31Hispanic 1EDUCATION NUMBERLess than High School 1High School/G.E.D. 7Some College 152 Year College Degree 44 Year College Degree 5Graduate Course work 3Masters' Degree 3Doctoral Course work 1Doctoral Degree 1RELIGION NUMBERCatholic 8Christian 7No Preference 6Methodist 5Baptist 3Pentecostal 3Agnostic 1Assemblies of God 1Charismatic 1Evangelical Free 1Lutheran 1Orthodox 1Presbyterian 1Protestant 1INCOME NUMBER$ 0-10,000 4$10-20,000 4$20-30,000 5$30-40,000 7$40-50,000 8$50-60,000 3$60-70,000 3$70-80,000 3$80-90,000 2$90-100,000 0$100,000+ 1A series of structured open-ended questions concerning the relationships between work and father involvement was asked during the course of 1.5- to 2-hour face-to-face interviews exploring a wide range of fathering issues. Questions concerning work occurred approximately 15 to 20 minutes into the interview. The first work-related questions were open-ended with more focused follow-up questions following. Although the interviewer used a flexible interview schedule, the general flow of questions was as follows:1. …

Leisure Behavior and Occupational Identity in University Students

This study examines relationships between leisure behavior and occupational identity in a group of 109 undergraduate students at a Midwestern state university. Significant relationships (p < .01) were found among thinking and contemplating, ethical leisure behavior, and occupational identity. University students who participated more in intellectual and creative leisure activities were more advanced in occupational identity achievement. Implications for life span career development interventions are discussed.

Balancing Home and Employment: Stress Reported by Social Services Staff

The paper aims to contribute to an understanding of how stress from the combined responsibilities of home and employment varies according to the family circumstances and employment characteristics of women and men. For women, family responsibilities are associated with shorter hours of employment and lower occupational achievement, whereas for men, marriage is a career asset. Yet the reason for women's underachievement is disputed: some researchers claim that women's part-time work in low-paid, low-status jobs represent women's voluntary choice. Others argue that women's employment options are constrained by their domestic responsibilities; and that reducing hours of work and modifying career aspirations may represent one way of balancing home and employment so as to minimise stress. Data are used from the National Institute of Social Work (NISW) Workforce Survey of over 1000 women and men in four broad types of work in the social service departments of five English local authorities. Information is available on staff's perception of stress from combining paid and unpaid roles. We examine whether there are gender differences in reported stress among those who have structurally similar domestic circumstances; whether gender differences in stress can be explained in terms of occupational segregation and hours of employment; and whether the lower stress reported by part-time employees is independent of family responsibilities and type of occupation. A key concern is to assess whether part-time employment enables women with family responsibilities to avoid high levels of stress. There was increased stress on those staff with dependent children or with informal caring commitments. Men reported higher stress than women, irrespective of family circumstances, but the difference disappeared once account was taken of type of work and hours. Family responsibilities and employment characteristics had independent effects on stress levels. Type of work, in terms of level of responsibility, had more influence on stress than hours worked. Among full-time non-manual staff, women with family responsibilities experienced more stress than equivalent men, suggesting that women's occupational advancement is achieved at greater cost in terms of stress than men's.

What Did You Do Today? Children's Use of Time, Family Composition, and the Acquisition of Social Capital

Using time-diary data collected from a statewide probability sample of California children aged 3-11, we examine the amount of time children spend on four activities presumed to affect their cognitive and development-reading or being read to, watching TV, studying, and doing household chores-and how that time varies by four family characteristics: parental education, maternal employment, number of parents in the household, and family size. As expected, children of highly educated parents study and read more and watch TV less. Contrary to expectations, children of mothers who are employed part-time watch significantly less TV than children of mothers at home full-time. Otherwise, there are few significant differences by mother's extent of paid employment, the presence of a father, and the number of siblings. Thus, the results reinforce the thesis that parental education is the predominant predictor of the and capital investments that children receive. Key Words: children, family composition, time use. Changes in the American family have resulted in a growing uneasiness about the well-being of children in the United States. Some researchers note how the increased educational attainment of parents and declining family size bode well for children's economic security (Bianchi, 1990; Haveman & Wolfe, 1993; Hernandez, 1993). At the same time, others have emphasized trends like the increase in single parenting that result in more poverty and undermine children's economic wellbeing (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). Although the research on maternal employment has been mixed and inconclusive (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982; Presser, 1995), there continues to be concern about the potentially negative effects of working mothers. Debate continues over whether the dramatic increase in mothers' labor force participation and more single parenting have diminished parental attention to children and eroded children's chances of success in school and in other arenas of life. Sociologists have emphasized the importance of parental transmission of cognitive ability and academic expectations for the educational and occupational achievement of children (Duncan, Featherman, & Duncan, 1972; Sewell & Hauser, 1980). The notion of human capital, a term sociologists borrowed from neoclassical economists, infuses our understanding of the goals of many childhood activities, particularly schooling. In this view, accumulating skills in childhood is of paramount importance, and understanding what impedes and what enhances development of competencies that will translate into success later in life becomes an important focus of the study of children and childhood activities. Sociologists, particularly James Coleman (1988), have broadened the economist's notion of capital to encompass what has been called social capital. Social like increases children's future productivity, but investments depend on the relationships in which children are embedded. So, for example, a child may have a talented and highly educated parent and thus be genetically endowed with great potential for cognitive development, but interactions with that parent are needed to convey encouragement and expectations. Social interaction with parents thus can create resources that will enhance the child's realization of his or her potential for achievement and later success. Parental resources also place children in certain types of communities and educational environments where interactions can provide further capital to facilitate good child outcomes. McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) argue persuasively that the dysfunctional outcomes of children raised with one parent-such as the higher likelihood of dropping out of high school, having an early teen birth, and having difficulty getting established in the labor market-result not only from the poorer economic circumstances of these children but also from the diminished interaction these children have with parents (especially fathers). …

Occupational Outcomes for Students Earning Two-Year College Degrees: Income, Status, and Equity

Introduction An interesting question in the sociology of knowledge and the politics of scholarship is why scholars studying two-year colleges(1) often conceptualize their research in adversarial terms. Innocent readers, encountering the subject for the first time by studying such works as those by Cohen & Brawer [5] and Brint & Karabel [3] might well wonder if the two books really dealt with the same institutions. Regardless of the reasons for the divisiveness that characterizes the field, advocates and critics make it more difficult to design an investigation of the effects of two-year colleges that not only is nonpartisan but also gives the appearance of being nonpartisan. Our work is no exception. The case for or against the two-year college is often predetermined by the aspect of the subject researchers choose to study. For example, do we examine access to higher education or persistence in higher education? If we study access, two-year colleges appear to have egalitarian effects; if we study persistence they seem to perpetuate inequality [16]. Many studies focus on persistence or educational attainment. The most often asked question is: are high-school graduates who begin their postsecondary studies in two-year schools as likely as those who enter four-year schools to get bachelors' degrees? Nearly all such studies have found that, even after controlling for several background variables, students aiming to earn bachelors' degrees are more likely to succeed if they begin their studies in a four-year college - between 11% and 19% more likely according to most estimates. This finding has been very extensively documented and explained by Dougherty [6, 7] and recently reconfirmed by Whitaker & Pascarella [25]. (See [15] for an important qualification.) But focusing only on educational attainment reduces the concept of equality of opportunity to equality of educational opportunity. Educational opportunity usually matters in stratification research because education opens the way to other opportunities, especially for income and status. Hence it is important to investigate, not only the two-year colleges' effects on educational attainment (and thus their indirect effects on occupational attainment). It is also important to investigate two-year colleges' more direct influences on occupational attainment. When studying occupational attainment as an outcome variable, the approach one takes to the subject again tends to prejudge matters in favor of either the advocates or the critics. The key issue is the proper comparison group. In research that compares individuals who began their postsecondary studies in two-year schools with those who began in four-year schools, the four-year attenders come out well ahead in job status, even after controlling for postsecondary educational attainment [18]. Critics point to this kind of evidence to maintain that two-year colleges perpetuate the existing occupational structure and students' places in it. Much research on the issue has, in fact, been done by critics and has compared the educational and occupational achievements of two-year and four-year college entrants. There has been little doubt that four-year college entrants tend to attain higher occupational status and earnings than two-year college entrants. But that is not the only appropriate comparison. In this study we load the dice the other way. We compare occupational outcomes for two-year college students with the occupational outcomes of high school graduates who entered the labor market with no postsecondary education. This comparison has not been made very frequently, and the results are much less conclusive than the two-year versus four-year comparison. (See Dougherty's review [7, p. 66] of the scant literature.) Furthermore, we compare these high school graduates with committed two-year college students, that is, those who began their studies within eighteen months of graduating from high school and who attended long enough and regularly enough to earn a vocational certificate, an associate's degree, or who transferred to a four-year college and earned a bachelor's degree. …

Paths to Success

The Class of ′71 is a longitudinal study following the educational and career paths of a group of Australians over the years from secondary school to mid-adulthood. This article is the second of a two-part series detailing the results of this study. In Part 1, which appeared in the Spring 1995 edition of this journal, factors associated with career outcomes, measured 20 years after secondary school, were detailed. In this article, findings that relate to intergenerational mobility, the association of unemployment with career outcomes, the match between occupational aspirations and achievements, and factors the respondents believed were influential regarding career outcomes are reported.

Effects of Occupational Status Differences between Spouses on the Wife's Labor Force Participation and Occupational Achievement: Findings from 12 European Countries

Effects of occupational status differences between spouses on the wife's employment and on her occupational achievement are studied for the coun- tries of the European Union. The results show a tendency towards similarity in occupational sta- tus within marriages. Labor force participation of a wife is highest when her potential occupational status equals her husband's occupational status. Furthermore, the husband's occupation produces both a ceiling effect and a facilitating effect on the wife's occupational achievement. The strength of these effects differs somewhat between the countries. For a wife's participation in the labor force, these differences are related to the country's dominant religion.

The Integration of Visible Minorities in Contemporary Canadian Society

Abstract. Using the 1991 Census Public Use Sample, this study examines the ethnic variations in education, occupation, and income and the connections between these dimensions of socioeconomic status. Some European groups have attained income parity even if their educational levels are much lower than the average of the total population. Though visible minorities tend to have a higher level of education, most of them are still under-represented in high status occupations and have incomes lower than what their educational and occupational achievements would merit. Blacks and South Asians suffer the most in income inequality. This study also reveals that various minority groups face different problems in their integration into Canadian society. Resume. A base des donnees d'echantillon du recensement 1991, nous examinons les variations entre groupes ethniques par rapport a l'education, le statut professionnel et le revenu. Certains groupes europeens ont atteint le revenu moyen de l'ensemble de la population en depit des desavantages considerables en education. Les groupes ayant un status de minorite visible ont des avantages en education, mais la plupart sont sous-representes aux plus hauts statuts professionnels et ils ont des revenus moyens inferieurs a ce que leur education et statut professionnel prediraient. Ceux de race noire et les asiatiques du sud ont les statuts les plus inferieurs. Cette etude indique que les divers groupes minoritaires font face a des differents problemes par rapport a l'integration dans la societe canadienne. Two hypotheses have been advanced to explain ethnic stratification in Canada. The first is the ethnically blocked thesis, introduced first in Porter's The Vertical Mosaic (1965), which considers ethnicity as an important factor in Canadian class structure. In this view, the socioeconomic achievement of members in an ethnic group is related to their entrance status when they immigrated to Canada. An entrance status inferior to that of the charter groups may be intensified by the ethnic affiliation of the members. Ethnic affiliation may restrain the status aspirations and achievement motivations of the members of the ethnic group. As a consequence, they may have limited educational qualifications and may find themselves in a segmented labour market (Blishen 1970; Porter 1975). This view has come under attack in the past two decades following some empirical studies. On the basis of the finding that ethnic occupational dissimilarity decreased over 1931-1971, Darroch (1979) questioned the assumption that the entrance status of an immigrant group may lead to permanent stratification linked to ethnicity. Some studies also indicate that any privileged position the charter groups may have historically had in the occupational structure was being effectively challenged by other European ethnic groups (Pineo and Porter 1985; Tepperman 1975: 149-152). Furthermore, some authors have suggested that simplistic claims of ethnic identity as a hindrance to social mobility must be rejected because the causal relationship between ethnic identity and social mobility is minimal or non-existent (Isajiw, Sever, and Driedger 1993). The second hypothesis, the discrimination thesis, attributes the inferior position of some ethnic minority groups to the socioeconomic structure of the society. In this view, unequal relations arise that systematically discourage and exclude some minorities from fully participating in mainstream society. For example, visible minorities may be put into an inescapable socioeconomic trap because of racial prejudice and discrimination such that access to the full range of job opportunities and other socioeconomic resources of the country may be limited for them. Often they are forced to stay at the periphery of the civic, political, and economic centres of society (Driedger 1989; Wiley 1967). Although passage of human rights legislation and official promotion of multiculturalism are aimed at eliminating structural discrimination in Canadian society, it is believed that discrimination persists in institutional settings and inter-personal relations. …

Essential and reactive alcoholism: a review.

Methodological characteristics and substantive findings of investigations of essential and reactive alcoholics were reviewed. The data base was comprised of approximately 12 studies published between 1951-1992, most of which employed small samples of hospitalized male alcoholics. Psychometric properties of the Essential-Reactive Alcoholism Questionnaire, the instrument generally used to assess the essential-reactive dimensions, rarely were examined. The weight of the evidence suggests that essential alcoholics have earlier onset and greater severity of alcoholism, lower levels of occupational and educational achievement, more interpersonal conflict, fewer long-term friendships, more antisocial attitudes and conduct, greater density of familial alcoholism, more impaired neuropsychological functioning, and lower resting blood pressure than do reactive alcoholics. Research is needed to assess the prognostic utility of the essential-reactive typology and the degree to which the distinction may facilitate patient-treatment matching.

A Circuitous path to Macrostructural Theory

I introduce this memoir about my academic career by describing the fortuitous incidents involved in my coming to this country and becoming a sociologist. In graduate school my sociological orientation changed under the influence of Merton and Lazarsfeld from grand theories to systematic theory grounded in research. My dissertation was a field study of bureaucracy in terms of Weber’s theory, which led to a book on exchange theory. Next I collaborated with Duncan on a nationwide study of occupational achievement and mobility, for which I learned regression analysis, reluctantly at first, but later becoming converted to it. During the next decade I conducted a research program on bureaucracy, specifically of quantitative studies of various types of formal organizations, from which I developed a limited organizational theory. The limitations of this theory prompted me to construct a formal macrostructural theory of population structure’s influences on intergroup relations, which was subsequently tested in empirical research on the 125 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

Long-term effects of international migration: Lessons from Israel

The paper shows that characteristics of immigrants at the time of immigration affect both long-term occupational achievements and income at the end of the labor force career, after age 59. Data representing 174,000 Jewish males 60 and older from a 1985 survey by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics are analyzed to show how the timing of immigration, the number of years in the country, age at immigration, country of origin, and educational resources at time of immigration are related to years in the labor force in the host country, occupational achievement, pension entitlement and income after age 59. Both direct and indirect effects are analyzed. The results show the importance of immigration characteristics on long-term socioeconomic adjustment, and the necessity of considering social status over the life course as an indicator of long-term immigrant adjustment. Decomposition of the effect of country of origin pinpoints what characteristics at time of immigration influence social status differences in ethnic groups at older ages. The discussion includes a number of methodological implications for future studies in immigration.

Ethnic and Gender Divisions in the Work Force of Russia

Like the former Soviet Union, Russia is home to many ethnic groups. The Russian Federal Treaty of March 1992 was signed by 18 ethnically-based republics and 17 non-Russian ethnic districts. Ethnic groups within Russia vary considerably in levels of socioeconomic achievement, with groups having had unequal access to political resources and differing in their ability to take advantage of economic opportunities. The author analyzed newly available occupational data from the 1989 census in his study of ethnic and gender differences in the work force of Russia. Measurements are presented showing differences between the occupations of Russians and the next largest 11 ethnic groups, producing a clear hierarchy of groups. The extent of occupational gender differences within each ethnic group is measured and contrasted with the level of differences between ethnic groups. These data are important for showing potential sources of group conflict and for providing a baseline to measure changing forms of inequality which have been promoted by post-Soviet developments. Preliminary findings point to the existence of highly significant differences between Russia's ethnic groups, with the level of the differences closely paralleling measures of socioeconomic achievement. To determine more precisely the significance of group differences in employment, detailed occupational categories must be examined more closely. Currently available data, however, do not permit more rigorous measurements of discrimination. It is nonetheless clear that ethnicity in contemporary Russia is strongly related to occupational differences. The aggregate segregation of men from women was found to be very stable despite the substantial socioeconomic and cultural differences between ethnic groups. As a group, Jews were found to have extremely high levels of educational and occupational achievement and a comparatively far older age structure.

Dimensions of self-concept: a comparison of heroin and cocaine addicts.

Two groups of drug users on an inner-city inpatient drug detoxification unit were studied: 42 heroin addicts and 47 cocaine addicts. The two groups were compared on personality disorder diagnoses, personality traits, and demographic variables. Cocaine and heroin addicts scored similarly on: 1) number and kind of personality disorder diagnoses, with the exception of antisocial personality; 2) all personality traits measured; 3) positive and negative temperament; 4) description of self-concepts; and 5) positivity and negativity of self-concepts. It was also found that heroin addicts showed significantly higher levels of social deviance than the cocaine group, with significantly more antisocial personality disorder diagnoses, higher levels of social deviance, and lower scores on a Propriety Scale. Character pathology was more heterogeneous among cocaine users. Heroin addicts had used significantly longer and showed less educational and occupational achievement than the cocaine group. Our results also suggest that personality psychopathology in drug addicts is associated with lower self-esteem, more negative self-valuation, and longer duration of use.

Education and occupation as risk factors for dementias of the Alzheimer and ischemic vascular types.

Education and occupation as sociodemographic risk factors for dementias of the Alzheimer (DAT) and ischemic vascular types (IVD) were evaluated by two case series studies. Cases were compared to well-evaluated individuals identified as healthy normals acting as controls. There were 150 patients with probable DAT, 102 patients with probable IVD, and 188 neurologically and cognitively normal subjects. Logistic regression indicated that for DAT, education with occupation was the best predictor (OR, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.23-1.87). For IVD, the two predictors were: education with occupation (OR, 1.84; 95% CI 1.38-4.50) and education with gender (OR, 3.40; 95% CI, 1.29-8.92). We conclude that risk of dementia is increased in those with limited educational background and occupational achievement.

A Circuitous Path to Macrostructural Theory

I introduce this memoir about my academic career by describing the fortuitous incidents involved in my coming to this country and becoming a sociologist. In graduate school my sociological orientation changed under the influence of Merton and Lazarsfeld from grand theories to systematic theory grounded in research. My dissertation was a field study of bureaucracy in terms of Weber’s theory, which led to a book on exchange theory. Next I collaborated with Duncan on a nationwide study of occupational achievement and mobility, for which I learned regression analysis, reluctantly at first, but later becoming converted to it. During the next decade I conducted a research program on bureaucracy, specifically of quantitative studies of various types of formal organizations, from which I developed a limited organizational theory. The limitations of this theory prompted me to construct a formal macrostructural theory of population structure’s influences on intergroup relations, which was subsequently tested in empirical research on the 125 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

Immigrants' Progress: Ethnic and Gender Differences among U.S. Immigrants in the 1980s

Using data from the June 1986 and June 1988 Current Population Surveys, we look at differences in occupational achievement, education, occupational prestige, and per capita income among a large number of first-generation immigrant groups. We seek to explore a central question in the debate about the economic prospects of immigrants: Do groups convert education into occupational prestige in similar ways? To address this issue, we examine differences in estimated rates of returns to socioeconomic occupational scores for education among immigrant groups. Notwithstanding language difficulties and unfamiliarity with the labor market—characteristics that we could not measure with this dataset—the labor market experiences of higher-skilled immigrants appear not to differ appreciably from that of native whites of native parentage. By contrast, low-skilled immigrants are concentrated in low-level jobs where the structure of employment seems to limit the rewards to additional gains in skill.

Educational and occupational achievements of brothers and sisters in adoptive and biologically related families

The study of brothers and sisters from adoptive and biologically related families permits unique analyses of the determinants of young adults' educational and occupational achievements. Brothers and sisters come from the same homes, neighborhoods, and usually schools. Many differences among families are controlled by the study of siblings. In addition, adoptive families influence their children only through the environment they provide, whereas biologically related parents transmit their intellectual and personal characteristics to their offspring genetically as well. Thus, the comparison of models of adult achievements for children from adoptive and biologically related families can inform us about the true effects of family environments, apart from genetic transmission (Scarr and Weinberg, 1978, 1980). In this follow-up study of 450 biologically related and adopted young adults (ages 22 to 30 years), we report on the family resemblances in educational and occupational achievements. Parents' reports were obtained on 97% of the original sample (N = 443), and 77% of the young adults participated in the follow-up study themselves; complete educational and occupational data were available on 303 young adults. Results show that biological sons are more influenced by their family backgrounds than daughters, regardless of genetic relatedness. A second finding is that young women's achievements are not as predictable from their own earlier achievements as are those of their brothers. A third finding is that parents invest in their sons' educational futures, regardless of sons' abilities and achievements, in ways they do not invest in their daughters' postsecondary educations. Sibling correlations and natural mother-adopted child correlations suggest that test scores, high school performance, postsecondary education, and even later occupational status can be influenced by genetic variability in personal characteristics that affect such achievements.