Joel E. Gerstl

Men Out of Work: A Study of Unemployment in Three English Towns.

Foreword Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. The research areas 3. The main determinants of unemployment length 4. The backgrounds and circumstances of the unemployed 5. Attitudes of the unemployed 6. The main findings: a further examination 7. Discussion of the findings Methodological appendix Bibliography.

Age and perceived effects of erotica-pornography: A national sample study

In the spring of 1970, a national sample survey of 2486 adults (aged 20–80) was studied to ascertain U.S. public attitudes toward and experience with erotic materials. Twelve items measured whether or not those interviewed believed that looking at or reading sexual materials had certain effects on themselves or others. Initial description of the results revealed a considerable diversity of opinion. This report provides a multistage typology of those item responses, beginning with characterization of items as positive, neutral, or negative in effect. Striking age gradients were observed at each stage in the typology formation. At first glance, these results are hardly surprising, yet introduction of controls for level of education, gender, and reported previous levels of actual exposure to erotica did not appreciably change the age-graded response pattern. The last stage in the typology contained four levels and showed a typical progression with increasing age. Younger age groups tended to attribute solely desirable and/or neutral effects to erotica. Those who expressed neutral and mixed (strongly positive and negative) views were somewhat older. The next age norms about explicit sexual materials took on a perception of no effects or a position of uncertainty. Finally, those who believed that pornography has largely or solely undesirable effects on its consumers were oldest. The replicability of the pattern suggests a specific order in the underlying process of change in values (historical and/or intraindividual).

Educational Channels and Elite Mobility: A Comparative Analysis

A detailed comparison of intergenerational mobility into one elite occupation-engineering -in Britain and the U.S. reveals contrasting patterns and indicates some of the mechanisms, especially education, that tend to be ignored in broad national comparisons. Changes in recruitment into engineering during the past forty-five years indicate increasing rigidity in the U.S. and a pattern of increasing fluidity in Britain. In addition, high status origins are more highly related to professional success in the U.S. than they are in Britain. The advantages of cumulative evidence based upon comparisons of particular occupational and educational institutions are suggested.

American views on retirement

Retirement has only recently become institutionalized in the United States. Earlier, most older men remained in the labour force, but today retirement is the overwhelming norm for the older American worker. The macroeconomic and microeconomic functions of retirement are distinguished. The ‘selling’ of retirement and the accompanying changes in attitude are illustrated by the treatment of retirement in the media, positive thinking being the dominant ideology. But retirees are often victims of cultural inconsistencies: changes in attitude to work and leisure lag behind changes in workforce participation.