Prestige versus socioeconomic status in the attainment processes of American men and women

This paper demonstrates the consequences to the researcher of choosing to analyze social mobility data with a prestige scale rather than with a socioeconomic index. First, the low intergenerational correlations reported for the International Prestige Scale are rejected when they are shown to be compatible with inadequate models of the processes of status inheritance. Second, the Duncan socioeconomic index is shown to be the preferred measure of status transmission in that it suffers from less random error than does the International Prestige Scale, particularly among men. Third, the occupational attainment processes of American men and women are described with socioeconomic scoring, and these findings are contrasted with those which obtain with prestige coding.