Otis Dudley Duncan

Path Analysis: Sociological Examples

Linear causal models are conveniently developed by the method of path coefficients proposed by Sewall Wright. Path analysis is useful in making explicit the rationale of conventional regression calculations. It may also have special usefulness in sociology problems involving the decomposition of a dependent variable or those in which successive experiences of a cohort are measured. Path analysis focuses on the problem of interpretation and does not purpot to be a method for discovering causes. It may, nevertheless, be invaluable in rendering interpretations explicit, self-consistent, and susceptible to rejection by subsequent research.

Residential Distribution and Occupational Stratification

Ecological analysis is a promising approach to the study of urban social stratification, for differences in the residential distributions of occupations groups are found to parallel the differences among them in socio-economic status and recruitment. The occupation groups at the extremes of the socioeconomic scale are the most segregated. Residential concentration in low-rent areas and residential centralization are inversely related to socioeconomic status. Inconsistencies in the ranking of occupation groups according to residential patterns occur at points where there is evidence of status disequilibrium.

Ethnic Segregation and Assimilation

An ecological conceptualization of the processes of immigrant adjustmen permits a demonstration of close correlations of residential segregation and centralization with selected indicators of assimilation, socioeconomic status, and social distance ranking of ethnic groups. Changes in residential patterns in Chicago between 1930 and 1950 were in the direction expected on the basis of a positive relationship between assimilation and lenghth of residence; but such changes did not disrup a pattern of differential segregation and spatial separation of ethnic colonies, this pattern exhibiting remarkable stability over the twenty-year period.

Cultural, Behavioral, and Ecological Perspectives in the Study of Social Organization

The three perspectives-cultural, behavioral, and ecological-differ in respect to their frames of reference, analytical units, and questions they raise about the nature of social organization. In the light of recent development and its manifest potentialities the ecological approach has advantages over the alternatives for explaining variation and change in such patterns of organization as bureaucracy and statification. The variety of cross-disciplinary interests represented in human ecology should challenge the student of social organization ot investigate the heuristic utility of an ecological viewpoint.

Does money buy satisfaction

There was no change in the distribution of satisfaction with the standard of living among Detroit area wives between 1955 and 1971, although current-dollar median family income more than doubled and constant-dollar income increased by forty per cent. Cross-sectional variation in satisfaction is, however, related to income and, in particular, to relative position in the income distribution. Whereas regressions of satisfaction on income in current or constant dollars, or the logarithm thereof, suggest that at the same income there was less satisfaction in 1971 than in 1955, there is no significant year effect in the equation using the income-position variable. Easterlin’s thesis that rising levels of income do not produce rises in the average subjective estimate of welfare is supported. The thesis raises difficult questions for students of subjective social indicators.

Exchange, Structure, and Symmetry in Occupational Mobility

Previous attempts to related the traditional concepts of exchange and structural mobility to parameters of the log linear model have been flawed. This article reformulated these concepts; introduces a new, more general conceptual distinction between reciprocated and unreciprocated mobility; and matches the concepts of structure and exchange to parameters of the model of quasi symmetry (QS). Specifically, if exchange or reciprocated mobility is defined as that part of the mobility process that results from equal flows between pairs of occupational categories, and if structural mobility is defined as an effect of marginal heterogeneity that operates uniformly on origins, then (if QS or any special case of QS holds) there is a correspondence between the parameter of the model and the concepts of structure and exchange. Furthermore, this correspondence can be used to develop meaningful parametric (as opposed to ad hoc) indexes of structural mobility. However, if QS fails to hold, there is at best a partial correspondence between the concepts of structure and exchange and the parameters of any multiplicative model. Data from Brazil, Great Britain, and the United States are used to illustrate the articles approach.

Ability and achievement

Abstract In the model used in this study, fathers occupation and education, the number of siblings, and the early intelligence level of the respondent are taken to be “predetermined” variables, with no assumption made as to causal order, with respect to later achieved status and to intelligence measured at maturity. Four successive dependent variables are educational attainment, intelligence at maturity, occupational achievement, and monetary earning. Results indicate that the ideal of equal educational opportunity is realized in the white population studied to the extent that progress through the school system is influenced at least as much by how bright you are as by “who” you are. However, the fact that the latter, indexed by measures of family size and status, does make a substantial difference in educational outcome, apart from its correlation with intelligence, is an indication that the ideal is far from being completely realized at this time.

Family Stability and Occupational Success

The effects of family stability in the parental generation, as indexed by the presence of both parents in the childhood home, on the marital and occupational statuses of American adult males in 1962 are measured for Negro and non-Negro men, respectively. The experience of growing up in an intact family does not increase the probability that a man will be found living with his wife in adulthood, but it increases the probability that he will be pursuing an occupation that ranks relatively high in the socioeconomic structure. Men raised in intact families not only have superior job qualifications, but also translate their educational attainment into occupational achievement more efficiently than do men of the same race who grew up in families headed by females.

Farm background and differential fertility

ResumenLos estudios precedentes de Goldberg y de Freedman y Slesinger sugerían que la fecundidad diferencial de las parajas casadas de acuerdo con variables como el grado de educación de la mujer, se presentaba en la población no campesina únicamente entre aquellas parejas de las cuales uno 0 ambos cónyuges vivían en una explotación agrícola. Esta conclusión se confirma en una muestra de parejas … de las cuales la mujer tenía de 42 a 61 años de edad en 1962.Los datos se tomaron delCurrent Population Survey de marzo de 1962 y de un cuestionario complementario, “Occupational Changes in a Generation.” Las parejas se clasificaron de acuerdo a su residencia—campesina 0 no campesina—en la fecha de la encuesta; y las parejas no campesinas se clasificaron según su medio. Se consideró que un cónyuge era de medio campesino cuando su padre, “cuando tenía el respondiente alrededorde 16 años de edad,” era propietario agrícola, administrador, labrador o capataz. De las parejas consideradas en el presente análisis, 54 por ciento correspondía a residentes no campesinos de un medio no campesino; 36 por ciento correspondia a residentes no campesinos, con uno o ambos cónyuges de medio campesino; y 9 por ciento correspondía a residentes campesinos. La fecundidad diferencial de acuerdo con la educación del marido o de la mujer ee muy pequeña en el primer grupo, pero pronunciada en los otros dos. Esta caracteristica se mantiene después de haberse tipificado (mediante un análisis de clasificación múltiple) de acuerdo con la edad y el color, la edad de la mujer al casarse y el status de la mujer en la fuerza de trabajo.

The measurement of population distribution

Abstract An exposition and evaluation of the major techniques for measuring population distribution are presented under the following heads: numbers and density by geographic sub-divisions; measures of concentration; measures of spacing; centrographic measures; population potential; residential classification; community size; other categorical measures. The study of population densities needs to be supplemented with the application of other analytical tools, inasmuch as no single measure of distribution fully discloses both the pattern and degree of population concentration. Most measures of distribution have to be interpreted n terms of the system of areal sub-divisions for which they are computed, because different results may be obtained with different systems. The interpretation of measures of distribution is strenghtened when empirical values are related to theoretical considerations, but relevant theories of distribution are not yet highly developed. The problem of population distribution, in both i...