Peter C. Pineo

Participation in Adult Education by the Elderly: A Multivariate Analysis and Some Implications for the Future

Micro-data from a 1984 survey of adult education in Canada are used in the study. The data for persons 65 years of age and over are analysed using probit techniques. Prior level of education is found to be of considerable importance in determining the probabilities that elderly people will make use of adult education facilities. It is argued that future elderly population cohorts will have higher average education levels than present ones and that their members will therefore be more likely to take courses. Projections of increases in course enrolment by persons 65 and over are made for the next quarter century, based on the results of the probit analysis and projections of the population.

Public Evaluations of the Social Standing of Industries and Firms

V N ALMOST ALL occasions whenever respondents in a social survey or census are asked their occupations they are also asked the industry for which they work. Occupation has become a key variable in sociology. Occupational status is used as a variable to predict the behaviour and attitudes of individuals and the occupational composition of a society is understood to be fundamental in comparing it to others. In contrast, relatively little use has been made of the very plentiful data concerning industrial location.’ Possibly the use of the data has been inhibited by an over-preoccupation with the idea of &dquo;situs&dquo; as originally elaborated by Benoit-Smullyan (1944) and further developed by Hatt (1950: 539). The notion of &dquo;situs&dquo;, as opposed to &dquo;status&dquo;, leads to the expectation that a classification scheme of industries should be non-invidious. That is, it should classify industries on a horizontal rather than a vertical axis of differentiation.