ON THE MEANING OF OCCUPATIONAL-STATUS - IMPLICATIONS FOR STRATIFICATION THEORY AND RESEARCH

There is a controversy regarding the meaning of occupational status centering around the issue of whether status differences continue to entail deference entitlement. This article suggests that deferential behavior is still linked to occupational status differences but, as a result of the complexity of occupational systems in industrial societies, there have been changes in the settings in which displays of deference occur and in the manner in which deference is expressed A source of confusion in the debate on the meaning of occupational status is the failure to distinguish between differences in status and differences in the occupational characteristics on a basis of which status is accorded This distinction and its implications for class and power hierarchies are discussed The article concludes with an argument for the necessity of situating the process of status differentiation in “status assignment systems”. © 1990 by the Ohio Valley Sociological Society.