John Robert Warren

Socioeconomic Indexes for Occupations: A Review, Update, and Critique

Following a review of the history and sources of socioeconomic indexes for occupations, we estimate a new set of indexes for 1990 Census occupation lines, based on relationships between the prestige ratings obtained by Nakao and Treas in the 1989 General Social Survey and characteristics of occupational incumbents in the 1990 Census. We also investigate theoretical and empirical relationships among socioeconomic and prestige indexes, using data from the 1994 General Social Survey. Many common occupations, especially those held by women, do not fit the typical relationships among prestige, education, and earnings. The fit between prestige and socioeconomic characteristics of occupations can be improved by statistical transformation of the variables. However, in rudimentary models of occupational stratification, prestige-validated socioeconomic indexes are of limited value. They give too much weight to occupational earnings, and they ignore intergenerational relationships between occupational education and occupational earnings. Levels of occupational education appear to define the main dimension of occupational persistence across and within generations. We conclude that composite indexes of occupational socioeconomic status are scientifically obsolete.

Employment During High School: Consequences for Students' Grades in Academic Courses:

High school students who work intensively at paid jobs tend to have lower grades in academic courses. Prior research has not properly tested theories about the source of the relationship between student employment and grades (or other outcomes), and has not explicitly modeled the potentially reciprocal nature of this relationship. We focus on both the short- and long-term effects of adolescent employment on grades in academic courses and simultaneously consider the extent to which grades may influence employment behaviors. We find no evidence that high school employment has either short-or long-term effects on grades in academic courses or that grades in these courses influence employment activities. Pre-existing differences between more and less intensively employed students fully account for the association between employment intensity and grades in academic courses.

A Comparison of Single-Sex and Coeducational Catholic Secondary Schooling: Evidence From the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988

Three questions were addressed using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988. First, are there differences between single-sex and coeducational Catholic secondary school students in academic and social psychological outcomes? Second, do these differences especially favor young women in single-sex schools? Third, can student pre-enrollment differences account for apparent sector effects? The results indicated that single-sex Catholic secondary schools were not especially favorable academic settings and that any advantages of attending these schools only benefited boys. However, any sector differences in student achievement test scores were explained by pre-enrollment differences in measured background and prior achievement. Recent changes in the demographic make-up of all Catholic high schools may account for the differences between our findings and prior research.

The impact of adolescent employment on high school dropout: Differences by individual and labor-market characteristics ☆

Abstract In this paper we address five questions. First, how do individual- and labor-market-level factors influence high school students’ paid employment behaviors? Second, to what extent is student employment associated with high school dropout net of these factors? Third, does the association between student employment and dropout vary by students’ race/ethnicity and other socio-demographic characteristics? Fourth, to what extent do local labor-market opportunities influence high school dropout? Fifth, does the association between student employment and high school dropout vary by local labor-market circumstances? Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 and the 1990 US Census, we find that several individual- and labor-market-level factors influence students’ employment behaviors; that adolescent employment and dropout are strongly associated, even after adjusting for individual- and labor-market-level factors; that this association does not vary by individual-level attributes; and that this association does not vary across labor markets. We end by describing two perspectives on the mechanisms linking adolescent employment and dropout.

Socioeconomic Achievements of Siblings in the Life Course New Findings from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

About 8,500 graduates of Wisconsin high schools and a randomly selected brother or sister have been followed from 1957 through the early 1990s. Data include multiple measures of social background, cognitive ability, schooling, and occupations held from career entry to midlife. The authors have analyzed occupational standing across the life course, using complementary measures of occupational education and occupational income. The analysis is based on structural equation models of sibling resemblance. The models estimate the effects of social background, cognitive ability, and schooling—both within and between families—across the life course of women and men. Across families, educational attainment levels are determined largely by cognitive ability and, to a lesser degree, by social background; family levels of occupational standing are determined largely by family education levels. Within families, cognitive ability also affects occupational standing primarily through schooling. Occupational inequalities and the effects of educational attainment on those inequalities both tend to decline across the life course.

Choosing a Measure of Occupational Standing: How Useful are Composite Measures in Analyses of Gender Inequality in Occupational Attainment?

Does the choice of measure of occupational standing affect inferences about gender differences in occupational attainment? The authors use data from the 1994 General Social Survey and the 1986-1988 Survey of Income and Program Participation to analyze the role of gender in the process of occupational attainment 15 times, each time using a different measure of occupational standing. Composite indexes of occupational standing are too heterogeneous to be useful in studies of occupational stratification, especially studies of gender differences. Women often have higher levels of education than men in the same occupation, while the opposite is true for earnings. Thus, using a composite index, the relative standing of mens and womens occupations is an arbitrary function of the weights given to occupational education and earnings. It is preferable to index occupations separately by each of their socioeconomic characteristics, or to use other, more direct measures of occupational characteristics.

Unauthorized Immigration to the United States: Annual Estimates and Components of Change, by State, 1990 to 2010

We describe a method for producing annual estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population in the United Sates and components of population change, for each state and DC, for 1990–2010. We quantify a sharp drop in the number of unauthorized immigrants arriving since 2000, and we demonstrate the role of departures from the population (emigration, adjustment to legal status, removal by the Department of Homeland Security [DHS], and deaths) in reducing population growth from one million in 2000 to population losses in 2008 and 2009. The number arriving in the U.S. peaked at more than one million in 1999–2001 and then declined rapidly through 2009. We provide evidence that population growth stopped after 2007 primarily because entries declined and not because emigration increased during the economic crisis. Our estimates of the total unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S. and in the top ten states are comparable to those produced by DHS and the Pew Hispanic Center. However, our data and methods produce estimates with smaller ranges of sampling error.

High School Exit Examinations and State-Level Completion and GED Rates, 1975 Through 2002

This article investigates the extent to which state-mandated high school exit examinations are associated with state-level public high school completion rates in the United States. The authors estimate a series of state and year fixed effects models using a new measure of state-level public high school completion rates and archival information about states’ policies on high school exit examinations from 1975 through 2002. The study finds that state high school exit examinations—particularly the “more difficult” examinations that have been implemented recently in some states—are associated with lower public high school completion rates and higher rates of General Educational Development test taking. Furthermore, the study finds that the association between state policies on high school exit examinations and public high school completion grows stronger as states become more racially and ethnically diverse and as poverty rates increase.

Panel Conditioning in Longitudinal Social Science Surveys

Social scientists usually assume that the attitudes, behaviors, and statuses of respondents to longitudinal surveys are not altered by the act of measuring them. If this assumption is false—or even if the quality of survey participants’ responses change because of measurement—then social scientists risk mischaracterizing the existence, magnitude, and correlates of changes across survey waves in respondents’ characteristics. In this article, we make the case that social scientists ought to worry more about panel conditioning biases. We also describe and demonstrate empirical strategies for estimating the magnitude of such biases in longitudinal surveys, and we provide illustrative empirical results that are germane to social science research. We end by outlining a research agenda that would generate specific information about the nature and degree of panel conditioning in specific longitudinal surveys as well as a broader understanding of the circumstances in which panel conditioning is most likely to occur.

Is the Glass Emptying or Filling Up? Reconciling Divergent Trends in High School Completion and Dropout

Conclusions about levels and trends in high school dropout differ dramatically depending on whether dropout is measured using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) or from the Common Core of Data (CCD). Using CPS- and CCD-based drop-out measures for 16- to 19-year-olds—which differ solely in their estimates of the number of 16- to 19-year-olds holding high school credentials—the authors show that half of the differences in estimated drop-out rates are due to how private school graduates and GED recipients are counted. The other half is likely attributable to CPS respondents’ misstatements of their children’s high school completion status. The rate at which students complete (or fail to complete) high school is best measured using CCD data.