Harry B. G. Ganzeboom

A standard international socio-economic index of occupational status

Abstract 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, Treimans international prestige scale (SIOPS) and Goldthorpes 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.

Three Internationally Standardised Measures for Comparative Research on Occupational Status

The classification and scaling of occupations constitutes the foundation of much, if not most, research on social stratification. Whether one studies access to desirable positions in societies (such as education or income), consumer styles, health outcomes, social interaction patterns, or social values and attitudes, measures of social background will more likely than not include a measure of social position derived from occupational position. In addition, the study of access to occupations is an important research topic in its own right. Ever since it was recognised that the division of labour is the kernel of social inequality, stratification researchers have developed ways to derive social status measures from information on occupations. Typically, this involves two steps. First, information about occupations is secured in a detailed classification of several hundred categories, often census or other official classifications. In comparative research with existing data, the task is often to reconcile the various classifications that have been used to code detailed occupational information in the component studies. In a second step, these detailed occupational classifications are recoded into status measures of more manageable size and sociological relevance, depending on the preferences of researchers and the nature of their research questions. There are many derived scales and broad classifications in circulation (Grusky and van Rompaey 1992).

Unemployment scarring by gender: Human capital depreciation or stigmatization? Longitudinal evidence from the Netherlands, 1980–2000

Using longitudinal data from the Dutch Labor Force Supply Panel (OSA), this article examines how unemployment scarring (i.e., wage setbacks following unemployment) and its underlying mechanisms operate across gender in the Netherlands over the period 1985-2000. A series of fixed effect panel models that correct for unobserved heterogeneity, reveal a notable disparity in unemployment scarring by gender. Interestingly, while unemployment scarring is short-lived and partly conditional upon human capital differences among women, it is strongly persistent among men and contingent upon old age, ethnicity, and tight economic conditions. Our findings provide new evidence regarding unemployment scarring by gender while they support the hypothesis that among women the effects of unemployment scarring are predominantly driven by human capital depreciation, while among men stigma effects dominate.

Effects of art education in secondary schools on cultural participation in later life

This paper reports on the effects of art education in secondary schools on the cultural participation of Dutch students 10–20 years after leaving school. We draw our conclusion from a sample survey among 1034 students from 31 schools, half of whom took art as a subject of examination. Art examination subjects were more often chosen by students who were already active in the arts, come from culturally active families, and who more often chose languages and other humanities in their examination package. However, in spite of their affiliation with art prior to choosing an examination package, training in the arts during secondary school was found to add to their participation in cultural activities ten to twenty years later. The effects are restricted to the same art discipline as the art lessons attended, and apply to both receptive [enjoying art of artists] and productive [producing art] cultural participation.

Changes in status attainment in Hungary between 1910 and 1989: Trendless fluctuation or systematic change?

This article addresses the effects of economic and political change on social mobility in Hungary between 1910 and 1989 by investigating whether the effects of family background on schooling and the effects of family background and schooling on first occupation vary between periods in Hungarys twentieth-century history. For this purpose, we distinguish five periods: the long-lasting Depression (1910 to 1933), the period around the Second World War (1934 to 1948), the long 1950s (1949 to 1967), the period of reform socialism (1968 to 1982), and the decline of socialism (1983 to 1989). Using large-scale datasets from 1973, 1983, 1992 and 1993, we are able to investigate developments in the parameters of the status attainment model for about 75,000 men and women. We use spline regressions to find out whether trends in the effects vary between periods. Linear secular trends in the effects of family background and schooling do not predominate; spline models reveal discontinuities between periods. On the other hand, a trend from ascription to achievement both for men and women can be observed. In contrast to the general assumption, the most important deviation from the general trend has taken place in the years before the communist take-over.

Has migration been beneficial for migrants and their children

The study compares the social mobility and status attainment of first-and second-generation Turks in nine Western European countries with those of Western European natives and with those of Turks in Turkey. It shows that the children of low-class migrants are more likely to acquire a higher education than their counterparts in Turkey, making them more educationally mobile. Moreover, they successfully convert this education in the Western European labor market, and are upwardly mobile relative to the first generation. When comparing labor market outcomes of second generations relative to Turks in Turkey, however, the results show that the same level of education leads to a higher occupation in Turkey. The implications of these findings are discussed.

2,000 Families: Identifying the research potential of an origins-of-migration study

ABSTRACT Despite recent advances, critical areas in the analysis of European migration remain underdeveloped. We have only a limited understanding of the consequences of migration for migrants and their descendants, relative to staying behind; and our insights of intergenerational transmission is limited to two generations of those living in the destination countries. These limitations stem from a paucity of studies that incorporate comparison with non-migrants – and return migrants – in countries of origin and which trace processes of intergenerational transmission over multiple generations. This paper outlines the theoretical and methodological discussions in the field, design and data of the 2,000 Families study. The study comprises almost 50,000 members of migrant and non-migrant Turkish families across three family generations, living in Turkey and eight European countries. We provide indicative findings from the study, framed within a theoretical perspective of “dissimilation” from origins, and reflect on its potential for future migration research.

Occupational Status Attainment

Over 50 years ago, large-scale Turkish migration to Western Europe started as institutionalised labour migration or the ‘guest worker’ system. At that time, factories, with the help of Turkish government agencies, started contracting Turkish workers to work in those industries suffering from a shortage of domestic employees. Turkish migrant workers took up jobs that were hitherto unknown to them and thus became occupationally mobile, almost by default. But little is, in fact, known about the distribution of the occupational and family backgrounds of these workers. The prevailing view is that recruitment was targeted at unskilled workers, predominantly with rural, if not agricultural backgrounds, whose occupational mobility after migration was, on average, upward (Castles and Miller 2009). However, in line with theories of migrant occupational mobility, the guest-worker system may have also attracted skilled and even professional workers, who gave up their initial calling in favour of better wages (but worse jobs) (Akresh 2008; Chiswick, Lee and Miller 2005). Using the 2000 Families study data, we can investigate how far Turkish migrants were positively selected by comparison with non-migrants from the same region, and even other members of the same families. This, in turn, will help us identify the implications for occupational mobility across generations (Ichou 2014).

A new international measure of social stratification

In this paper we present a new international measure of social stratification, the ICAMS (International Cambridge Scale). Our aim is to bring new evidence to the hypothesis that the construct that underlies measures of social stratification as different as prestige scales, socio-economic indexes, social distance and social status scales is actually unidimensional. We evaluate the new scale according to both criterion-related and construct validity. Our analysis shows that the ICAMS is a valid indicator of social stratification, being almost as valid as International Socio-Economic Index (ISEI) in what we termed the generic, the homogamy and the social mobility models, and being better than ISEI in the cultural consumption model. The second key result is that all continuous measures we consider (ICAMS, ISEI and Standard International Occupational Prestige Scale) are indicators of the same latent dimension, which is unidimensional. This latter result is compatible with more than one explanation, hence calling for further research.

Art and socialisation

This article discusses the impact of arts socialization on participation in arts. Arts participation is characterized by large social inequalities. We focus on early arts socialization by parents and later socialization at school and discuss two models that explain the link between social inequalities and arts socialization: the cultural reproduction model and the cultural mobility model. The models differ in the importance they attach to early socialization by the parents and later socialization in schools. In addition, we discuss the status theory and the information theory, which explain effects of arts socialization, respectively, by social context and cognitive capacities. Finally, we review some relevant empirical studies, noting their substantive findings and/or methodological shortcomings.