Table Of ContentThis is a volume of
QuantitativeStudies in Social Relations
Consulting Editor: Peter H. RossL University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, Massachusetts
A completelist oftitlesin thisseries isavailablefrom thepublisher.
OCCUPATIONAL PRESTIGE
IN COMPARATIVE
PERSPECTIVE
DONALD J. TREIMAN
DepartmentofSociology
University ofCalifornia,Los Angeles
ACADEMIC PRESS New York San Francisco London
A Subsidiaryof Harcourt BraceJovanovich, Publishers
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Occupationalprestigein comparativeperspective.
(Quantitativestudiesin social relationsseries)
Bibliography: p.
Includesindexes.
1. Occupationalprestige. I. Title.
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List of Figures
6.1 Scatterplot of relationship between Gross National Product per capita and
prestige similarityto the UnitedStates,for 54Places. 133
8.IA Mean, standard deviation, and range of prestige(Standard Scale) scores for occu-
pations classified according to the major groups of the International Standard
Classification of Occupations (Revised); Ns are number of occupations in each
category. 163
8.1B Mean, standard deviation, and range of prestige(Standard Scale)scores for occu-
pationsclassified accordingto the majorgroupsofthe 1960U.S. Census classifica-
tion; N s are numberofoccupationsineach category. 164
8.1C Mean, standard deviation, and range of prestige(Standard Scale)scores for occu-
pationsclassified as nonmanual, manual or farm; Ns are numberofoccupationsin
each category. 165
8.2 Scatterplot of relation between per capita GNP and correlation of individual
country occupational prestige hierarchies with the Standard Scale (open circles
indicatestudentsamples and solid circles indicatenonstudentsamples). 178
xi
List of Tables
2.1 Summary of Sample and Rating Characteristics of Studies Used to Form Basic
DataSet 31
2.2 Illustrative Matches of Occupational Titles from Individual Countriesto the Stand-
ardCategories 54
~.1 Summary of Correlations between Prestige Ratings by Occupational Subgroups
withinCountries 65
3.2 Similarity to the U.S. in Prestige Ratings by Students and Various Occupational
Groups, for SelectedCountries 69
3.3 Intergroup Correlations and Similarity to the U.S. in Prestige Ratings by
GeographicSubgroupsfor CountriesLackingNationalConsensus 73
3.4 ZambianStudentOccupationalPrestigeRatingsbeforeandafterIndependence 76
4.1 IntersocietalCorrelationsofOccupational PrestigeRatings 81
4.2 Summary of Intersocietal Similarity in Occupational Prestige Hierarchies, for
SelectedDataSets 97
4.3 AverageCorrelationsfor Various Regionsand CultureAreas 98
5.1 Intercorrelationsof EducationLevels ofOccupations 110
5.2 IntercorrelationsofIncomeLevels ofOccupations 112
5.3 IntercorrelationsofOccupational Education, Income,and Prestige,and Correlations
with theStandardInternationalOccupational PrestigeScale 114
5.4 ResultsofRegressionofPrestigeon Educationand Income 115
5.5 Matchesof CasteTitles for Nepal(ca. 1395) to StandardScale,togetherwith Rank
Orderof NepaliCastesListedinDecreasingOrder 119
5.6 Matches of Occupational and Guild Titles for Fifteenth-Century Florenceto Stand-
ard Scale, together with Fifteenth-Century Florentine Protocol Rank Listed in
Decreasing Order 122
5.7 IntercorrelationsofOccupationalWealthand PrestigeLevels for PastSocieties,and
Correlationswith StandardInternationalOccupationalPrestigeScale 124
5.8 TheOccupationalHierarchyofPreindustrialCities 127
6.1 Correlations among Indicators of Prestige Similarity and Indicators of Social
StructuralSimilarity 138
7.1 Estimate of Upgrading of Manual Work and Downgrading of Routine Clerical
Workin EasternEuropeanCountries 147
7.2 Selected Characteristics of 50 Common Occupations, Including Correlations of
Their Relative Standing across Countries with Three Indicators of Industrialization
for the 27Placesfor WhichGoodDataAreAvailable 155
xiii
xiv List ofTables
8.1 StandardScaleScoresfor MajorOccupationGroups-SelectedComparisons 170
8.2 StandardScaleScoresfor Every20th OccupationinRankOrder 174
8.3 Correlations of Individual Country Prestige Scores with Standard Scale, and with
Version ofStandardScaleExcludingScoresfor CountryinCorrelation 176
8.4 Correlations with Standard Scale of Occupational Prestige Data not Used in
Constructingthe Scale 180
8.5 Comparison ofStandardScaleand AlternativeStatusScales as PredictorsofLocal
OccupationalPrestigeHierarchiesforSelectedCountries 182
9.1 AStandardInternationalClassificationofOccupations 206
9.2 The 1970 U.S. Labor Force Classified According to the Standard International
ClassificationofOccupations 207
9.3 Zero-Order Correlations of Selected Variables with Standard, Duncan, and HSR
ScaleScores,for SelectedU.S. Samples 210
Preface
This book is a study of the nature of inequality in human society.
Although ostensibly concerned simply with describing and accounting for
societal similarities and differences in occupational prestige hierarchies, the
book actually speaks to a much broader issue. I argue that stratification is
inevitable in complex societies because they are characterized by a highly
developed division of labor into distinct occupational roles, and occupa-
tional role differentiation inherently gives rise to inequalities in power, privi-
lege, and prestige. Moreover, all complex societies have fundamentally
similar occupational status hierarchies because occupational differences in
power, and hence in privilege and prestige, are rooted in the division of
labor and are thus everywherethe same.
These conclusions derive from a comparative analysis of occupational
hierarchies in over 60 societies, both past and present, based on popular
evaluations of the prestige of occupations drawn from sample surveys and
on data on occupational skill and wealth levels drawn from census records
and other sources. The mode of analysis, in which societies are the units of
observation and patterns of systematic covariation among various societal
characteristics are identified, reflects a particular conception of the purpose
of comparative analysis: to discover the invariant properties of human
social systems. To do this we must move away from the case study
approach that dominates comparative analysis. It is not enough to analyze
a single society or even a handful of societies; rather, we must obtain data
from a sufficiently large and diverse set of societies to be able to distinguish
between those elements of social organization that are characteristic of all
societies, those that are characteristic of particular types of societies, and
those that are unique to specific societies at specific points in their histories.
This, however, raises a practical difficulty. It is not ordinarily possible for
a single investigator to collect primary data from a large enough sample of
societies to sustain an analysis of this sort. This means that data must be
xv
xvi Preface
pieced together from studies conducted by different investigators, and such
data will typically be drawn from diverse samples assessed with a variety of
procedures. Hence, to achieve even reasonable confidence in the validity of
one's conclusions requires devoting a great deal of effort to problems of
data comparability. Even so, the conclusions of this sort of analysis must
necessarily be tentative, given the fragmentary nature of the data. But
knowledge based on some evidence, however fragmentary, from a wide
variety of societies is surely better than extrapolation from detailed studies
of a few special cases. I contend that now, and for the foreseeable future,
wide ranging secondary analysis of existing data is the only way we will
have of achieving a valid comparativesociology.
This study is conceived as a contribution to such an effort in two
respects. First, it serves as an example of the sort of comparative analysis
that can be carried out solely on the basis of preexisting data. Second, an
important conclusion of the analysis-that occupational prestige hierarchies
are fundamentally invariant across all complex societies-has made it pos-
sible to develop a cross-nationally valid occupational prestige scale that can
be used as a standard measure of occupational status in future comparative
research.
Acknowledgments
This book had its origin more than 10years ago, at the National Opinion
Research Center of the University of Chicago in the summer of 1964,when
Pete Rossi suggested to Bill Hodge that they update the paper that Rossi
had done with Alex Inkeles comparing the prestige hierarchies of eight
industrialized countries (Inkeles and Rossi, 1956) and Hodge invited me to
work with him on it. The paper (Hodge, Treiman, and Rossi, 1966) begat
my Ph.D. dissertation, defended in 1967, and the dissertation begat the
present monograph, albeit with many digressions and other devotions in the
intervening years.
The research reported here can probably best be described as an attempt
at the making of silk purses from sows' ears, dependent as it has been on
the piecing together of data from diverse sources for the purpose of effect-
ing systematic cross-national comparisons. Whether the effort was success-
ful is for the reader to judge. But the attempt would not have been possible
without the generosity and support of a large number of people, at several
universities and research centers.
The substantial support and aid I received in preparing the Ph.D.
dissertation that served as a springboard for the present analysis has already
been acknowledged in the dissertation itself. Here I would like to single out
for special thanks those who contributed to the subsequent analysis.
First, the development of the ideas presented here profited enormously
from extensive discussion with my colleague Jonathan Kelley, now at Yale;
Kelley also read and tore apart parts of several drafts of the manuscript,
which are clearly better for his attentions. Others who provided helpful sug-
gestions are David Featherman and Hal Winsborough, University of Wis-
consin; Dudley Duncan, University of Arizona; Judah Matras, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem; and Jonathan Cole, Si Goode, Jack Hammond,
Eugene Litwak, Andy Beveridge, Herb Klein, Amitai Etzioni, and Bernard
Barber, Columbia University.
