F.L. Jones

Scoring Occupational Categories for Social Research: A Review of Current Practice, with Australian Examples

The scoring of occupational categories has a long history. After reviewing the historical background, we develop and discuss the properties of two new Australian scales based on current theorising in stratification research. The first is based on the operation of the labour market and scores occupations to reflect their central role in converting educational credentials into market income. The second is based on patterns of social interaction and scores occupations to reflect the choices that people make in marriage markets. While these two scales are not theoretically or empirically equivalent, they are closely related and provide equally valid, but alternative, ways of measuring the underlying stratification order of modern societies.

Diversity and Commonality in National Identities: An Exploratory Analysis of Cross-National Patterns

Issues of boundary maintenance are implicit in all studies of national identity. By definition, national communities consist of those who are included but surrounded (literally or metaphorically) by those who are excluded. Most extant research on national identity explores criteria for national membership largely in terms of official or public definitions described, for example, in citizenship and immigration laws or in texts of popular culture. We know much less about how ordinary people in various nations reason about these issues. An analysis of cross-national (N= 23) survey data from the 1995 International Social Science Program reveals a core pattern in most of the countries studied. Respondents were asked how important various criteria were in being ‘truly’ a member of a particular nation. Exploratory factor analysis shows that these items cluster in terms of two underlying dimensions. Ascriptive/objectivist criteria relating to birth, religion and residence can be distinguished from civic/voluntarist criteria relating to subjective feelings of membership and belief in core institutions. In most nations the ascriptive/objectivist dimension of national identity was more prominent than the subjective civic/voluntarist dimension. Taken overall, these findings suggest an unanticipated homogeneity in the ways that citizens around the world think about national identity. To the extent that these dimensions also mirror the well-known distinction between ethnic and civic national identification, they suggest that the former remains robust despite globalization, mass migration and cultural pluralism. Throughout the world official definitions of national identification have tended to shift towards a civic model. Yet citizens remain remarkably traditional in outlook. A task for future research is to investigate the macrosociological forces that produce both commonality and difference in the core patterns we have identified.

Occupational Prestige in Australia: A New Scale

The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently released a new occupational classification, the Australian Standard Classifi cation of Occupations. Unlike its predecessor, the new classifi cation is skill-based. In this research note, I use a public use sample from the 1986 Census, the ASCO/CCLO link file, and other census data, to explore the structural basis of the two main Australian prestige scales. I also present a new socio- economic status scale, the ANU3 scale, for use with the Aus tralian occupational classification.

The ANU3_2 scale: a revised occupational status scale for Australia

Australian researchers have used ANU status scales for over two decades to assign socioeconomic status scores to occupations coded into the occupational classifications produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). When the ABS has released new occupational classifications in the past, the ANU scale has been updated accordingly. The most recent status scale, the ANU3 scale, was developed in 1989 for use with the First Edition of the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO). In 1996, however, the ABS released the Second Edition of ASCO. In this paper, we report an adaptation of the ANU3 scale for use with this modified classification.

An international comparative analysis of marriage patterns and social stratification

An international comparative analysis of marriage patterns and social stratification measures based on the occupations of married and cohabiting partners, considering how close or far they are from each other socially as indicated by relative rates of inter‐marriage. Presents preliminary findings from six countries: Australia, UK, Germany, Hungary, Ireland and the USA. Outlines some of the problems involved in creating such measures and their potential solution. Looks at national differences in the strength of the relationship between marriage patterns and social stratification, as well as in the location of particular occupational groups.

Marriage Patterns and the Stratification System: Trends in Educational Homogamy since the 1930s

To date most studies of social closure in the stratification orders of industrial societies have used as their empirical indicators one or another measure of father-to-son mobility. A complementary insight into such processes is provided by tendencies towards status homogamy. Census data from the 1981 Australian census (the one per cent sample tape) for 4 different cohorts of married couples provide a basis for assessing to what extent there has been any change over time in the stratification of marital choices, as reflected in the school leaving ages and post-school qualifications of spouses. The findings point to no loosening in the bonds of stratification since 1950, although there is some slight evidence of differences among those who married during the 1940s.

Class Structuration and Patterns of Social Closure in Australia and New Zealand

On the basis of patterns of intergenerational mobility and class endogamy in Australia and New Zealand, we develop models of exchange between the generations. Data on intergenerational change in terms of social mobility (father-to-son mobility) and class endogamy (the social origins of spouses) reveal considerable stability in patterns of exchange in each country and across age cohorts. The analysis shows that, while considerable social interchange occurs, it does so at different rates depending on social distance and class background. The barriers that inhibit exchange are grounded in institutions of structured inequality, and they operate selectively within the class structure.

Segregation Indices: an Historical and Conceptual Note

It is gratifying to see economists turning their attention to topics that have long occupied their sociological colleagues, like the measurement of segregation. In a recent contribution, Karmel and MacLachlan (1988) cite some of the early sociological work (Duncan and Duncan, 1955). But they ignore other work that might have led them to qualify their conclusion that the conventional Index of Dissimilarity (ID) is difficult to interpret, misleading, and unsatisfactory as a measure of segregation (Karmel and MacLachlan, 1988, 187-8). They also present

Simulation Models of Group Segregation

This paper is concerned to illustrate a general theorem, that purely individual rational behaviour can produce aggregate social outcomes consistent with, perhaps even suggestive of, concerted collective action and discrimination. It is a formal, even formalistic, analysis and not the results of any empirical investigation, although these formal models are useful in understanding certain aspects of more complex social pro cesses. To focus the discussion, I draw upon two areas that have in fact been the subject of considerable empirical research: residential segrega tion between racial groups, and gender segregation in the occupational structure. I discuss a restricted class of phenomena, amenable to rational choice theory, to demonstrate how actions which are rational at the in dividual level produce aggregate outcomes far more extreme than anyone intended or desired. A major implication of the analysis is that in order to realise more optimal outcomes the private actions of in dividuals need to brought into harmony through coordinated and col lective action.

Modelling mobility: the use of simulation to choose between near-equivalent models

The application of the log-linear model to frequency counts has rekindled interest in the traditional social mobility table. This recent literature is to a degree divided over several issues, including how to develop an acceptable model of mobility flows and how to choose between near-equivalent models which generate almost identical fitted counts but have different substantive implications. In reviewing some of these issues, we draw upon Goldthorpes development of Hausers “levels” model and present a general mobility model which, we argue on theoretical grounds, should be broadly applicable to modern industrial societies. We develop the model using Australian data, extend it to British and American mobility data, and use Monte Carlo methods to choose between alternative models. In developing our substantive interpretations of different models, we illustrate models that underfit, overfit, and adequately fit the observed mobility flows.