Occupational prestige (also known as job prestige) is a way for sociologists to describe the relative social class positions people have. It refers to the consensual nature of rating a job based on the belief of its worthiness. The term prestige itself refers to the admiration and respect that a particular occupation holds in a society. Occupational prestige is prestige independent of the particular individual who occupies a job. Sociologists have identified prestige rankings for more than 700 occupations based on results from a series of national surveys. They created a scale with 0 being the lowest possible score to 100 being the highest, and then ranked the occupations based on the results of the survey.[1]
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Calculating occupational prestige in the United States
During the 1960s through the 1980s job prestige was calculated in a variety of different ways. People were given index cards with about 100 or so jobs listed on them and had to rank them from most to least prestigious. This ranking system was known as placing jobs in a "ladder of social standing." Another method they used in this time period was to have the respondents rank jobs on a "horizontal ruler" using specific guidelines such as estimated income, freedom of choice, and how interesting the job was. No matter what the method the outcomes were generally the same .[citation needed]
Although pay and fame have little to do with occupational prestige, the measures of prestige is a part of the concept of social economic status (SES). Job with high prestige are more likely to have a higher level of pay stability, better lateral career mobility, and established professional associations. Some popular scales that are used to measure SES include: the Hollingshead's four and six measure of Social Economics Status Scale, the Nam, Boyd, and Power scale, and the Duncan's measures of Social economics.
A 2007 Harris Poll of 1,010 U.S. adults suggested that occupational prestige is linked to perceived impact on welfare; the highest ranking jobs being firefighter, scientists, and teachers.[2] Lower ranking jobs include well-paid positions such as brokers, actors and bankers. Police officers and Engineers tended to fall somewhere in the middle of the ladder. According to The Harris Poll (2007), the following are the changes over the last quarter century of American's view as the most and least prestigious jobs:
- Those who see teachers as having "very great" prestige has risen 25 points from 29 to 54 percent;
- Those who say lawyers have "very great" prestige has fallen 14 points, from 36 to 22 percent;
- Scientists have fallen 12 points from 66 to 54 percent;
- Athletes have fallen ten points from 26 to 16 percent;
- Physicians have fallen nine points from 61 to 52 percent;
- Bankers have fallen seven points from 17 to 10 percent;
- Entertainers have fallen six points from 18 percent to 12 percent.
List of occupations by prestige
Occupations by prestige (NORC)
The list of occupations by prestige assembled by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in 1989 is the one most commonly used. The list[3] includes over 800 occupations, but only the top 20 with the highest prestige scores are listed here.
Occupation | Prestige |
---|---|
Chief executive or general administrator, public administration | 70.45 |
Manager, medicine and health | 69.22 |
Architects | 73.15 |
Aerospace engineer | 69.22 |
Chemical engineer | 72.30 |
Civil engineer | 68.81 |
Engineer (not elsewhere classified) | 70.69 |
Computer systems analyst or scientist | 73.70 |
Physicist or astronomer | 73.48 |
Chemist | 73.33 |
Geologist or geodesist | 69.75 |
Physical scientist, not elsewhere classified | 73.09 |
Biological or life scientist | 73.14 |
Physicians | 86.05 |
Professor | 71.79 |
Teacher | 73.51 |
Psychologist | 69.39 |
Clergy | 68.96 |
Lawyer | 74.77 |
Judge | 71.49 |
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Hauser, Robert. "Socioeconomic Indexes for Occupations: A Review, Update, and Critique" (PDF). Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
- ^ The Harris Poll #77, August 1 (2007). "Firefighters, Scientists And Teachers Top List As Most Prestigious Occupations; According To Latest Harris Poll:Bankers, Actors And Real Estate Agents Are At The Bottom Of The List"
- ^ "Norc Scores". Colorado Adoption Project: Resources for Researchers. Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
Sources
- Stevens, G, & Featherman, D. L. (1981). A Revised Socioeconomic Index of Occupational Status. Social Science Research, 10, 364–395.
- Klaczynski, Paul A. "Sociocultural Myths and Occupational Attainment: Educational Influences on Adolescents' Perceptions of Social Status." Youth and Society, 1991, 22, 4, June, 448–467.
- "In U.S., Women's Weight Gain Brings Loss of Income, Job Prestige, Study Finds." Health & Medicine Weekly, 2005, June. Retrieved March 9, 2006, from NewRx database.
- Schooler, C., & Schoenbach, C. (1994, September). "Social Class, Occupational Status, Occupational Self-Direction, and Job Income: A Cross-National Examination. Sociological Forum." Academic Search Premier database, 1994, September 431–459.
- Ollivier. "Too much money off other people's backs': status in late modern societies". The Canadian journal of sociology. 2000 vol:25 iss:4 pg:441 -470.
- Witt, Jon, ed. Soc 2012. 2012. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 245-46. Print.