OCCUPATIONAL PRESTIGE AND SELF-DESIGNATION: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION

This study examines the relationship between the evaluation of occupational activities and self-designation. A hypothesis positing a positive relationship between prestige and occupational self-designation is confirmed with data from a national sample of full-time employed men in the U. S. Deviations in the observed data pattern point to several technical and methodological problems, as well as to some problems regarding research in stratification. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the evaluation of occupational activities and self-designation. Studies by Kuhn, McPartland and Cummings, McPhail, and Couch support one of the propositions in Self-Other Theory that selfing activities are dependent upon the activities of others. A number of accounts discuss the relationship between the evaluations of others and self-designations, while research by Couch and Murray, Miller, and Sherwood lends empirical support for the proposition. This leads to the general proposition which guides this study: The higher the positive evaluation of a person's activity by others, the greater the likelihood a person will designate himself in terms of that activity. Now, we will see how this proposition is related to occupational activities. In the sociology of occupations there are two issues which are relevant to the above proposition. First, there is the concern with occupational self-designation. Becker and Carper, Berger, Faunce and Wilensky point to the problem in industrializing nations of maintaining one's occupation as a "meaningful" role in relationships with others. Second, there is the concern with the prestige of occupations. Most of the studies on prestige are concerned with the methodological problems of measuring the variable but there are some which demonstrate empirical relationships with other "sociological indicators." Although never empirically established, a positive relationship between prestige and occupational self-designation is implied in some of this research. There is some research which points to the possibility of such a relationship. Studies by Wilensky, Form and Geshwender, Hagedorn and Labovitz, Bojean, Bruce, and Williams show that: (1) others with whom a person interacts are relevant to his evaluation of his job, (2) those in low prestige occupations interact more with their peers and family, while those in high prestige occupations interact more with their professional colleagues, and (3) those with high prestige occ