Some Preliminary Findings on Social Stratification in the United States.

This is a preliminary report from a study of occupational mobility in the United States. Objectives of the study are to describe patterns of social mobility in some detail, to estimate the influence of various factors on occupational life chances and to ascertain a few consequences of socio-economic status and mobility, such as their implications for fertility. The present paper reports selected findings pertaining to factors affecting occupational achievement and chances to move away from one's social origins. In particular, researchers examine the significance for occupational attainment of education, ethnic background, community size, migration and parental family. In addition to presenting preliminary substantive findings from this research, this paper also provides an opportunity for illustrating the analytical procedures that have been used. The analysis relies to a large extent on the regression approach. Two major advantages of this approach which prompted this decision to adopt it are that it is a very efficient method of large scale data reduction and that it permits, consequently, the simultaneous examination of interrelations of fairly large numbers of variables, especially if computers are used. Contingency tables containing half a dozen or more variables and many hundreds of cells are too complex to be analyzed by inspection, whereas the regression method permits the analysis of these interrelations.