Understanding social stratification through social interactions between occupations: The CAMSIS approach

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Understanding social stratification through
social interactions between occupations The
CAMSIS approach

• Paul Lambert, University of Stirling, UK
• Wendy Bottero, University of Manchester, UK
• Presentation to the conference Occupational
  Stratification Social change and methodological
  issues, University of Eastern Piedmont, 13-14
  May 2008

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The CAMSIS approach
CAMSIS social interaction distance scales 1.1) Introduction to approach 1.2) Methodology and its empirical features 1.3) Interpretations
Evidence about occupational structures 2.1) Universal and specific alternatives 2.2) Evidence on change and stability
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1.1) CAMSIS in briefCambridge Social Interaction
and Stratification scales

• Stewart et al 1973, 1980 Prandy 1990 Prandy
  Lambert 2003
• www.camsis.stir.ac.uk
• One dimensional summary of a structure of social
  distance between occupations that is interpreted
  as a measure of social stratification
• Calculated according to empirical patterns of
  social interaction between the incumbents of
  occupations, using data on friendship, marriage,
  or father-son intergenerational mobility
• Family of scales for different countries, time
  periods, men and women

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Social stratification social interactions
Social stratification Bottero 2005, p3 the
patterning of inequality and its enduring
consequences on the lives of those who experience
it

• Central concern is the reproduction of social
  inequalities
• Social relations are key agents in reproducing
  inequalities
• E.g. social interactions, homophily, social
  networks
• Classically, intergenerational social relations
  show patterns which tell us about the structure
  of social inequalities (e.g. Weber)
• Generally, other patterns of social relations
  (social interactions) also reveal the same
  patterns of structured social inequalities

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Social stratification occupations

• Occupational titles as convenient tags to
  locate people within a social structure
• Long term indicators of lifetime social
  circumstances
• Easily measured at high level of detail
• Complications
• Occupational restructuring - tags have potential
  to change over time and between countries in
  their relative positions
• Gender - male and female occupational
  distributions
• For SID scales, objective features of occupations
  are (potentially) irrelevant
• Similar to prestige rankings
• Departure from conventional class categorisations

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1.2) CAMSIS methodology

• www.camsis.stir.ac.uk
• Website sets out principles for deriving scales
  using correspondence analysis or RC-II
  association models
• Also site for distributing databases with CAMSIS
  scales (c30 countries, scales for periods
  1800-2001)
• Derivation
• Requires a dataset of pairs of occupations linked
  by a social interaction
• Instructions on methods using SPSS, lEM and
  Stata

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Tabular analysis (correspondence analysis RC-II
association models)
A large cross-tabulation of pairs of occupations
is modelled dimension scores help predict
frequency of occurrences in cells scaled
dimension scores are then presented as CAMSIS
scale scores.
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(No Transcript)
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From Bozon and Heran (1989), Finding a spouse
A survey of how French couples meet, Population,
44(1)91-121.
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Ongoing methodological issues

• Dimensionality
• We find there is always one discernible
  stratification dimension (continuous in
  character challenges class accounts)
• Other dimensions to the social interaction space
  between occupations include farming gender
  segregation regions
• Current practice of controlling for
  Pseudo-diagonality
• manually identify and exclude institutionally
  connected occupations
• Sparsity / re-coding occupations
• Gender
• For male-female social interactions, row and
  column scores (m/f) are discernibly different a
  male and female scale is published
• For cross-gender analysis, use male for both or
  m for m and f for f...?
• Confidence intervals on scale scores?
• Interactive or automated derivation?
• E.g. HIS-CAM 10 national permutations4 gender
  patterns5 levels of occupational detail5 time
  periods1000 different scales

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1.3) Interpretation

• SID scales identify a stratification space
  defined by social relations
• Weber reproduction in life chances and life
  styles
• Bourdieu reproduction through social space
  e.g.. Bottero 2005
• Chan and Goldthorpe 2004 2007 social
  interactions reflect deference and authority and
  therefore status
• Understanding concepts and measures
• SID scales using occupations correlate c0.8 or
  more with ISEI, SIOPS, and other scales and
  schemes
• Interpretation that they measure a generalised
  structure of social stratification advantage
  Stewart et al. 1980 Prandy 1990 Rytina 1992
• All occupation-based social classifications
  measure this same structure but SID scales,
  which emphasise both the economic and cultural
  aspects of social stratification, are better for
  recognising this

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2.1) Universal and specific alternatives

• Universal
• one scaling of occupations is adequate across
  time / between countries / for men and women
  (Treiman constant)
• Specific
• useful to have different scalings between
  countries, time periods, etc
• SID approaches could be either universal or
  specific
• CAMSIS scales have, a priori, been specific
• Website c300 different scales from c30 countries

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Universality or specificity? Lambert et al.
2008

• Easy to demonstrate some specificity
• Certain occupations change positions in SID
  scales in a manner that is substantively
  plausible (e.g. farming)
• Some scale derivations use nested loglinear
  models, and likelihoods and BICs favour
  specificity
• Social scientists / social historians are
  ordinarily interested in differences / changes in
  occupations relative positions
• Whether there is enough specificity is unclear
• Most scales correlate well with most others
• In most uses of occupation-based measures,
  universality is fine
• With SID data, some specificity could be
  measurement error
• Practical obstacles to specificity (but see
  www.dames.org.uk / www.geode.stir.ac.uk)

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2.2) Evidence on change and stability

• Sociologically, change in the relative
  stratification advantage associated with any
  particular occupational position is hypothesised
• Examine components of occupational activities and
  conditions
• e.g. Euroccupations Guveli 2006 Oesch 2006
• Describes occupations and occupational structure
• Doesnt necessarily tell us about how occupations
  are valued within the social arrangements of the
  stratification structure
• Concentrate on social positioning of occupations
• Prestige rankings
• Average rankings by combinations of social
  outcomes (e.g. ISEI)
• Social Interaction Distance scales
• Evaluating change using SID scales
• Stability is the main pattern in all examples
• Problem of non-comparable occupational unit
  groups
• Problems of potential measurement error, and lots
  of occupational positions

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HIS-CAM V0.1
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National changes in SID scales ISCO-88 major
groups
Ger. 1995 Ger. 1995 Hung. 1996 Hung. 1996 Swi. 90 Rus. 92 Slv. 94
m f m f m m m
1. Managers, legislators, senior officials 59.5 62.2 63.0 62.1 56.5 72.2 80.8
2. Professionals 79.6 74.0 75.1 71.0 72.9 78.1 89.9
3. Assoc. Professionals and technicians 55.6 55.3 59.5 55.1 56.7 59.6 61.3
4. Clerks 50.4 54.5 52.0 51.4 43.4 59.3 47.4
5. Service workers / sales 47.7 49.1 52.4 55.2 47.9 55.7 49.3
6. Skilled agricultural 42.5 28.4 34.4 33.9 43.3 55.0 40.1
7. Craft and trades 40.2 31.9 42.4 37.7 39.0 43.5 44.0
8. Plant and machine operators / assemblers 31.6 26.6 39.2 30.7 33.2 40.8 40.5
9. Elementary occupations 35.4 25.1 31.7 28.0 33.8 41.3 37.7
Scales from www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, versions originally derived using ISCO-88 Scales from www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, versions originally derived using ISCO-88 Scales from www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, versions originally derived using ISCO-88 Scales from www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, versions originally derived using ISCO-88 Scales from www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, versions originally derived using ISCO-88 Scales from www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, versions originally derived using ISCO-88 Scales from www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, versions originally derived using ISCO-88 Scales from www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, versions originally derived using ISCO-88
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Comparing SID scales USA 1960 / 1990 / 2000,
male CAMSIS scores for particular occupations
1960 1990 2000
Architect (13 43 130) 83.2 78.4 76.1
Sociologist (175 168 183) 84.1 73.2 75.0
Telephone operators (353 348 502) 51.2 49.3 44.3
Farmer (200 473 21) 46.3 46.0 50.1
Farm labourer (902 479 605) 31.1 27.3 26.3
Barber (814 457 450) 46.6 40.8 45.0
Boilermakers (403 643 621) 51.8 34.2 38.8
From www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, scales derived on SOC data from IPUMS. Figures in brackets show the SOC code used for each year From www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, scales derived on SOC data from IPUMS. Figures in brackets show the SOC code used for each year From www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, scales derived on SOC data from IPUMS. Figures in brackets show the SOC code used for each year From www.camsis.stir.ac.uk, scales derived on SOC data from IPUMS. Figures in brackets show the SOC code used for each year
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Summary occupational change and CAMSIS scales

• The main story is of similarity in occupational
  rankings over time
• Its not easy to tell a coherent story about
  major changes in occupations meanings
• There are examples of occupations with plausible
  (non-measurement error) changes over time and
  between countries
• Occupations with many female workers
• Farming occupations
• Occupations in declining / expanding sectors
• Occupations in economies in rapid transition

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Summary - contributions of CAMSIS scales

• Summary measure of occupational positions
• Differentiates finer occupational details
• Typically 300 occupational units assigned
  different scores
• Emphasises a hierarchical structure of inequality
• Measures relative advantages typically associated
  with incumbents of an occupational position
• Explorative device for understanding occupations
• Measure multiple relative structures of
  stratification between countries, time periods,
  gender based groups..?

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References

• Bottero, W. (2005). Stratification Social
  Division and Inequality. London Routledge.
• Bozon, M., Heran, F. (1989). Finding a Spouse
  A Survey of how French Couples Meet. Population,
  44(1), 91-121.
• Chan, T. W., Goldthorpe, J. H. (2004). Is There
  a Status Order in Contemporary British Society.
  European Sociological Review, 20(5), 383-401.
• Chan, T. W., Goldthorpe, J. H. (2007). Class
  and Status The Conceptual Distinction and its
  Empirical Relevance. American Sociological
  Review, 72, 512-532.
• Guveli, A. (2006). New Social Classes within the
  Service Class in the Netherlands and Britain
  Adjusting the EGP class schema for the
  technocrats and the social and cultural
  specialists. Nijmegen Radbound University
  Nijmegen.
• Oesch, D. (2006). Redrawing the Class Map
  Stratification and Institutions in Britain,
  German, Sweden and Switzerland. Basingstoke
  Palgrave.
• Prandy, K. (1990). The Revised Cambridge Scale of
  Occupations. Sociology, 24(4), 629-655.
• Prandy, K., Lambert, P. S. (2003). Marriage,
  Social Distance and the Social Space An
  alternative derivation and validation of the
  Cambridge Scale. Sociology, 37(3), 397-411.
• Rytina, S. (1992). Scaling the Intergenerational
  Continuity of Occupation Is Occupational
  Inheritance Ascriptive after all? American
  Journal of Sociology, 97(6), 1658-1688.
• Stewart, A., Prandy, K., Blackburn, R. M.
  (1973). Measuring the Class Structure. Nature.
• Stewart, A., Prandy, K., Blackburn, R. M.
  (1980). Social Stratification and Occupations.
  London MacMillan.