Ida Harper Simpson

Class Identification Processes of Married, Working Men and Women

We propose gender-specific models of class identification based on the distinctive work and occupational experiences of men and women. Using data from the General Social Surveys of the National Opinion Research Center on white married men and women who were employed full time in 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, and 1980, regression analysis supports our contention that processes of class identification are gender-specific. Mens class identification is predicted by whether they do manual or nonmanual work and by their position in a supervisory hierarchy. Womens is predicted by self-employment, work in a female occupation, and union membership.

Historical Patterns of Workplace Organization: From Mechanical to Electronic Control and Beyond

This article examines social changes in the organization of work brought about by the shift from mechanical to electronic technology. Whereas mechanical technology fixed work in time and place, the electronic is lifting those constraints and initiating new processes. Two of the most notable are the decomposition of the labor force, including the decoupling of work from the employing organization, and the substitution of electronic for bureaucratic control. These shifts are redirecting structural and normative features of the workplace, institutionalized during the mechanical era, toward direct market control. Longstanding work expectations concerning work schedules, job security and predictable career progression are being challenged. The workplace is increasingly anomic and workers increasingly vulnerable.

Occupational Recruitment, Retention, and Labor Force Cohort Representation.

Occupations differ in recruting and retaining labor forces from different cohorts of workers. The measures cohort representation is constructed here to summarize outcomes of the different processes. The paper proposes an occupational competition model consisting of work qualifications, opportunities, rewards, and shelters to account for cohort representation in occupations. United States census data are used to follow four male and four female cohorts in 63 occupations over 20-year periods from 1920-40 through 1950-70. The model predicts recruitment from young cohort better that retention or recruitment from aging cohorts. High work qualifications and wide opportunities favored recruitment. This pattern developed progressively from each cohort to the next for men but appeared only in 1950-70 for women. Contrary to expectations, shelters and high rewards generally did not favor detention. Occupational characteristics rooted directly in the division of labor (qualifications and opportunities) structured the male and female labor markets in similar ways. Characteristics arising from the organization of labor markets within an existing division of labor (shelters and rewards) did not. Male labor markets were relatively structured; female labor markets were amorphous.

Church Activism Among Farm Couples: Measuring the Impact of the Conjugal Unit

A sample offarm couples is used to examine the impact of the conjugal unit on church activism. Church activism is a norm for wives, which only the inactivity of their husbands can radically alter. The data show that the most powerful influence on the church activism of either husband or wife is the activism of their spouse. Wives have a greater impact on their husbands than vice versa. A third model is used to examine the effect of the conjugal unit on church activism. Results suggest that the system properties of the marriage are an important determinant, when other factors are controlled.

The Contrasting Effects of Social, Organizational, and Economic Variables on Farm Production

This article draws on the intellectual traditions of industrial sociology to argue that social organizational variables as well as economic inputs affect production. Using a sample of 683 North Carolina farms, varying in size from 50 acres or fewer to more than 4,500 acres, the study found that the social organization of production and the occupational community of farming significantly affect production, net of the influences of agricultural resources, and the sociodemographic characteristics of the farm operators. Participation in the occupational community and having a production organization that is family based, with relatively high variation across status groups in task performance, have substantial payoff in farm sales. Resources prove to be more important for the productiveness of small farms, whereas social organizational influences are more significant for medium to large farms, suggesting that farms must achieve a minimum scale of operations for social organizational variables to be most effective.