Occupational Strata Research Articles

Differential Fertility in Monterrey, Mexico: Prelude to Transition?

The past 30 years have witnessed rapid and significant advances in the Mexican economy. Yet, even though mortality has fallen precipitously, recent investigators have looked in vain for signs of a transition in Mexican fertility. For the country as a whole, no decline is evident.1 Moreover, available evidence indicates that urban fertility has tended to increase in recent years even though it remains lower than rural fertility.2 Rather than signify that no transition in fertility has occurred, however, these results may indicate that the effects of modernization have not been sufficiently pervasive to be reflected at a nationwide or urban level. Since existing theory maintains that fertility declines begin in the upper educational and occupational strata of large urban areas, an adequate assessment of the possibility of a change in Mexican fertility requires the investigation of fertility differentials among socioeconomic subgroups within urban areas. This paper is a first report of such an investigation. The data are based upon a survey of 1,640 males between the ages of 21 and 60, resident in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Mexico.3 The Monterrey metropolitan area serves as an excellent location in which to investigate differential fertility because of its size (an estimated 950,000 inhabitants in 1965) and its importance as a center of Mexican heavy industry (43 per cent of the economically

The Geographic Mobility of Professional and Technical Manpower

Professional, technical, and kindred workers are the fastest growing segment of the labor force; evidence from the 1960 Census reveals that they are close to twice as migratory as any other occupational stratum. An attempt is made to discover the major determinants of professional mobility, using the 1960 Census of Population one-in-a-thousand sample. In a multiple regression analysis age accounts for most of the explained variance in mobility, followed by income, education, regional location, sex, family size and marital status. Factor analysis suggests that migration is linked primarily to occupational career mobility and family life cycle. Occupational determinants are more closely scrutinized in a breakdown of detailed professional occupations by mobility. The analysis suggests several characteristics of work organizations and careers that influence geographic mobility. Other sources of mobility are discussed, and the relevance of the study for research on labor mobility is noted.

Structural Factors Affecting Parental Aid to Married Children

The presence of a help pattern between parents and their married children has been established. This paper seeks to determine the effects of four factors upon parental aid to married children: residential propinquity, length of the child's marriage, occupational stratum, and sex of the child. Important findings include: (1) the verification of Litwak's statement that residential distance need not inhibit the giving of financial aid and gifts; (2) the use of indirect means of financial help, such as gift-giving, by the young wife's parents; and (3) the independence of the young working-class male from his parents when he is compared with the other three sex stratum groups.

Politics and Social Structure in a Norwegian Village

Leveling in the distribution of economic goods in a small Norwegian town over a twenty-year period is such as to cast doubt upon the rational basis for the keen local political factionalism. Analysis reveals a definite relationship of political preference to occupation rank, although not to income, wealth, or age. Occupational strata thus constitute a set of positions which support broad differences of interest in an egalitarian nation which does not recognize a class system, while politics provides some of the gratifications secured elewhere by class distinctions.

Determinants of Occupational Community in High Status Occupations

A FREQUENT FOCUS of both contemporary social criticism and sociological analysis is upon the subtle interplay between work and leisure. One of the pervading themes in these polemics stems from a consideration of the differential changes in the length of the work week for various occupational strata and the consequent projection to a future which will involve more leisure for the masses and more work--or at least a continuation of strenuous work-for

Unitary Political Behavior and Differential Political Motivation

A POPULAR postelection game, played alike by scholars, communication experts, politicians and other members of conscious political publics, is to speculate vigorously and sometimes convincingly about the reasons why the citizenry supported the winner. What was most important in the thoughts of the voters? What sort of mandate, if any, did the winning party receive? Was there considerable positive identification with the winning party, or negative reaction to the other? Who was responsible for the margin of victory the candidate or the party? An illustration of this type of political analysis occurred during the early hours subsequent to Mr. Eisenhower's triumph of 1952, when, in Springfield, Illinois, members of Adlai Stevenson's inner circle not refrain from talking it over, from looking back and trying to figure what went wrong. 1 In their collective autopsy, Eisenhower's popularity as a national hero, the desire for a change, the Democratic record, President Truman's participation in the campaign, the Korean War, corruption, communism, and inflation were enumerated as decisive elements in the motivational pattern of Republican voters. Moreover, they suggested that there was nothing Mr. Stevenson could have done to diminish Mr. Eisenhower's charismatic appeal, both as a hero of war and prophet of peace. Such a list has sufficient items to avoid serious errors of omission and sufficient cogency to seem instructive, but as a broad sketch of what hap. pened in a presidential election, it merely provides a highly generalized basis for further questions. In terms of a theory of political behavior, one pertinent question, and the one to which this paper is addressed, is the extent to which various occupational strata are impelled to vote for a

Occupational Stratification and Mobility in the Large Urban Community

This is the second part of a series of reports based on a sampling survey in Tokyo in the summer of 1952. In this part, the strata structure of the large urban community is examined through a study of occupational stratification and mobility. Geographical mobility is also analysed in relation to occupational mobility.Indices used were : (1) place of birth, (2) father's occupation (name, position in job, type of job, and its industrial classification), (3) the place where he had finished compulsory education, (4) educational level, (5) his first job, (6) the place of his first job, (7) the job which he had engaged in immediatelir before coming to Tokyo and its geographical locale, (8) the job after coming to Tokyo, and (9) the age at time of arrival there.At first, strata classification of occupation is discussed. And then the existing classification system of occupation (the classification used at the 1930 Census) is modified and a new system based on eight categories of occupational types is established.Next, the occupational structure of the metropolis is analysed and its characteristics are summarized.Then the population flow of Tokyo is analysed from the point of geographical, generational and age levels. Special emphasis is given to the problem of second and third sons of farmers, that is, what is their position in the existing population structure and from what strata and locality have they come.And the origins of the immigrant and native population of the metropolis is analysed in terms of birth place and occupational strata. Finally, the occupational relationship of generations are treated within each occupational category. Occupational mobility is analysed in terms of generation and temporal changes rather than geographical changes.

Marital Selection and Occupational Strata

An analysis of prevailing marriages of various occupational strata is presented by cross-section survey methods. The data are viewed from the position of the male, of the female, and of the parent, with the findings in each case tending to confirm prior studies in showing a substantial amount of occupational endogamy. Marriage within the person's own or a contiguous stratum is highly typical. More higher-level persons marry down than up; more lower-level persons marry up than down.

Occupational Mobility of Urban Occupational Strata

Occupational Mobility of Urban Occupational Strata

An Empirical Scale of Prestige Status of Occupations

Average prestige status ratings for ioo representative occupations are presented in the form of a numerical scale. Government officials and professional workers received the highest ratings; small business men, salesmen, clerical workers and skilled workers were given medium ratings; and unskilled workers were given lowest positions. Illustrations are presented of the use of the ratings in the identification of occupational strata, and in correlating prestige with other characteristics of occupational classes.

Social Stratification in the Urban Community

ANY DISCUSSION of stratification has to cope with the difficulty that the term social is not definitely fixed and uniformly understood in sociological literature. How can we rid it of ambiguities? (I) The term should not be used as a synonym for related concepts which haveassumed aunivocal meaning. Incomeclasses,occupational strata, races, interest groups or other clearly definable groupings should not be called classes. It is true that for merely technical reasons these groupings may serve as a convenient point of departure for an analysis of particular aspects of stratification; the analyst who tries to measure the size of classes or the degree of mobility among their members must use these concepts, since they are offered to him by census reports and similar statistics. He should be aware, however, that they are only auxiliary terms, and that their identification with classes is both unnecessary and confusing. (2) The theory of stratification should not refer to a specific society, but should be general enough to apply to various structures. We know of societies in which high rank is conferred by age, and others where it is conferred by physical strength. There are systems in which the classes tend to coincide with occupational groups, others where they conform rather with the income pyramid, cutting across all occupations. No theory which proceeds from a particular objective criterion or set of criteria can do more than describe stratification in a particular system; it must fail to explain the phenomenon of class as such. The Marxian concept of class may stand as an illustration of this kind of theory. According to the Marxian analysis, class depends on similarity of economic interest. The individual's relation to the means of production determines his decisive economic interests, and these are held to influence political behavior, create struggle and result in a historic trend toward freedom, provided