Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:35:45.743Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Social Evaluation of Occupations in the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Murray Yanowitch  and
Norton T. Dodge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the consequences of the revival of sociology as a distinct discipline in the Soviet Union has been the appearance of empirical studies of prevailing attitudes toward the major occupations in Soviet society. These studies have been accompanied by discussions in Soviet newspapers and in the educational and economics literature of the problems associated with the popular perception of various occupations, particularly among student youth.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 1969 , pp. 619 - 643
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

The authors are grateful for many useful suggestions by Murray Feshbach, Foreign Demographic Analysis Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census. This article is part of a larger study under preparation for the Foreign Studies Group, Office of Economic and Manpower Studies, National Science Foundation.

1. Sarapata, A., Studia nad uwarstwieniem i ruchliwościa społeczną w Polsce (Warsaw, 1965)Google Scholar; Sarapata, A. and Wesolowski, W., “The Evaluation of Occupations by Warsaw Inhabitants,” American Journal of Sociology, 66, no. 6 (May 1961): 581–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an earlier American study of some of the questions examined in our paper, see Alex Inkeles and Raymond Bauer, A., The Soviet Citizen (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), pp. 77–100.Google Scholar

2. Aitov, N, “Education and Life,” Oktiabr1, 1966, no. 7, p. 169.Google Scholar

3. Krevnevich, V. V., “Economic Foundations of Vocational Guidance of Youth,” Sovetskaia pedagogika, 1968, no. 2, p. 44.Google Scholar

4. Rutkevich, M. N., ed., Zhiznennye plany molodezhi (Sverdlovsk, 1966), pp. 35, 186.Google Scholar

5. There is one limitation, however, which had better be explicitly noted. All of the respondents have been either secondary school students or their parents. Most graduates of these schools, at least until recently, have been drawn from intelligentsia and whitecollar employees’ (slushashchie) families (see Yanowitch, M. and Dodge, N., “Social Class and Education: Soviet Findings and Reactions,” Comparative Education Review, 12, no. 3 [October 1968]: 254)Google Scholar. This limits the extent to which these studies disclose the popular perception of occupational status. Some of the studies examined below, however, have also focused on the differential evaluation of occupations depending on the occupational background, area of residence, and sex of the respondent. Taken as a group, therefore, these studies have embraced a rather broad spectrum of the Soviet population.

6. Shubkin, V. N., “The Utilization of Quantitative Methods in a Concrete Sociological Investigation of Problems of Labor Placement and Occupational Choice,” in Kolichestvennye metody v sotsiologicheskikh issledovaniiakh, ed. Aganbegian, A. G. (Novosibirsk, 1964), p. 246.Google Scholar Shubkin's more recent findings appear in “The Choice of Occupation,” Sovetskaia pedagogika, 1968, no. 2, pp. 56-57. The earlier study includes much more extensive material on the ranking of occupations than the later one. Hence we rely chiefly on Shubkin's earlier study in this paper.

7. Shubkin in Kolichestvennye metody, p. 204. It is worth noting that this rather extensive list of occupations omits any that are associated with the practice or enforcement of the law.

8. Soviet critics of the Novosibirsk study have pointed out that the “attractiveness“ of an occupation may be associated with completely different values for different respondents. For some it may imply high wages, the creative character of the work, possibilities for promotion and social recognition; for others it may be based on the simplicity of the work and the limited period of vocational training required. These critics have also recognized that satisfactory prestige evaluations require a multidimensional rating method rather than a single summary criterion such as “attractiveness.” See Vodzinskaia, V. V., Saganenko, G. I., and Iadov, V. A., “In Search of Scientific Methods of Regulating Social Processes,” Voprosy filosofii, 1966, no. 6, p. 163.Google Scholar

9. These groupings embrace all but three of the seventy-four occupational titles shown in table 8—pilots, radio technicians, and accountants and bookkeepers. The Novosibirsk study lists the first two of these occupations together with personnel in transportation and communications, but their ratings (shown in table 8) are not incorporated into the summary ratings (given by Shubkin) for this sector as a whole. Accountants and bookkeepers are shown together with personnel in trade and services, but their ratings are also excluded from the summary measures. The thirteen broad groupings are based on major sectors of the Soviet economy (industry, construction, transportation, agriculture, trade and services, education and public health, and science), and in all sectors except science a further distinction is made based on the degree of skill and formal training required by the particular occupation (“specialists” versus “nonspecialists“). The term “specialist” is applied to persons whose jobs usually require a secondary specialized or higher education.

10. Some of the broad occupational groupings are quite heterogeneous in composition. Thus, specific occupational titles in a relatively low-rated grouping (of the kind shown in table 1) may be rated higher than some titles in a relatively high-rated grouping

11. We use the term “prestige” as broadly synonymous with “attractiveness,” recognizing that Western (and Polish) studies usually associate prestige measures with ratings of occupations by their “social standing” or the “respect” they command.

12. The following industrial workers’ jobs were rated higher than the agronomist's by all respondents combined: lathe operators, electricians, electric and gas welders, miners, steel founders, chemical workers, weavers and spinners.

13. An improvement in the quality of economics literature and the apparent “deideologizing“ of biology may have changed student attitudes toward these areas in more recent years.

14. Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen, pp. 77-100; Inkeles, Alex, Social Change in Soviet Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), chaps. 9-10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Margolin, L. A., “Freedom of Occupational Choice as a Condition and Form of Manifestation of Freedom of the Personality,” Nauchnye doklady vysshei shkoly: Filosofskie nauki, 1966, no. 2, pp. 34–42.Google Scholar

16. A similar conclusion is implied by the information that less than one-fifth of the Nizhnii Tagil parents regarded a worker's occupation as the most desirable one for their children. Ibid., p. 38.

17. See Yanowitch and Dodge, “Social Class and Education,” pp. 258-60

18. Rutkevich, Zhiznennye plany molodeshi, pp. 159-76.

19. Ibid., p. 167.

20. We would expect the two types of studies to reveal a broadly similar, but not identical, picture of occupational attitudes. Some occupations with an extremely high “attractiveness” rating in the Novosibirsk study (pilots or physicists, for example) may appear as appropriate work careers to only a small minority. But we would also expect the occupations most frequently cited as career preferences to be among those with relatively high “attractiveness” ratings.

21. These studies do not clearly distinguish between students’ “plans” and “prefer ences.” The general context of the studies required the students to indicate their “occupational choices.” We use the terms “plans” and “preferences” interchangeably with full recognition that a more precise specification of the nature of students’ responses would have been desirable.

22. Vodzinskaia, V. V., “On the Question of the Social Conditioning of Occupational Choices,” in Ananev, B. G., Elmeev, V. la., and Kerimova, D. A., Chelovek i obshchestvo (Leningrad, 1967), p. 78 Google Scholar; Dorokhov, A, “The Necessary Person in the Necessary Spot,” Iunyi tekhnik, 1968, no. 3, p. 4 Google Scholar; Aitov, Nariman, “What's My Line?,” Soviet Life (January 1968), p. 38 Google Scholar; Fomicheva, T. V., “Psychological Foundations of Occupational Choice by Students in Graduating Classes,” Voprosy psikhologii, 1966, no. 1, p. 73 Google Scholar; Epshtein, L. E., Ekonomicheskie faktory kommunisticheskogo vospitaniia (1966), p. 239.Google Scholar The figure for scientists in Bashkiria is taken as the sum of those naming chemist and geologist as their preferred occupations. The figure for scientists in Brest is taken as the sum of those naming chemist and physicist. In Moscow and Leningrad the figure for scientists is that shown for “scientific workers.” The figure shown for Cheliabinsk applies only to those naming the occupations of teacher, doctor, and engineer.

23. In the Moscow, Leningrad, and Bashkiria studies less than 10 percent of the respondents cited workers’ jobs as their occupational preference. In Cheliabinsk and Brest the prospect of a worker's career was considerably more popular, but even there no more than one-fifth of the students expressed a preference for a worker's occupation. As for sales and service occupations, these were even less popular than a worker's career. It is significant that the “more than 5 percent figure” for Moscow secondary school graduating students naming such occupations as preferred was treated by a Soviet writer as a change for the better in this regard. Dorokhov, “The Necessary Person … ,” Iunyi tekhnik, p. 4

24. Vodzinskaia in Chelovek i obshchestvo, p. 79; Kniazeva, R. N., “Vocational Guidance in the Rural School,” Shkola i proisvodstvo, 1968, no. 7, p. 27 Google Scholar; Rutkevich, Zhisnennye piany molodeshi, p. 167.

25. The plans of male students are so predominantly focused on engineering occupations (along with physics and mathematics) that they exhibit relatively little interest in medicine and almost none in teaching. Shubkin in Kolichestvennye metody, pp. 172, 217; Kochetov, G. M., “Occupational Inclinations and Job Placement of Secondary School Graduates,” Shkola i proisvodstvo, 1968, no. 7, p. 24 Google Scholar; Vodzinskaia in Chelovek i obshchestvo, p. 77. In the Leningrad study (conducted by Vodzinskaia) girls also chose engineering occupations more frequently than teaching and medicine.

26. Rutkevich, Zhiznennye plany molodezhi, p. 159.

27. Bliakhman, L, “What to Be? Who to Be?,” Molodoi kommunist, 1968, no. 4, p. 83.Google Scholar

28. Aitov, N, “Education and Life,” Oktiabr1, 1966, no. 7, p. 169.Google Scholar

29. Aitov, N, “The Influence of the General Educational Level of Workers on Their Productive Activity,” Voprosy filosofii, 1966, no. 11, p. 24.Google Scholar

30. Ural'skii gosudarstvennyi universitet, Obshchestvennyi interes i lichnost? (Sverdlovsk, 1967), p. 143.Google Scholar

31. Rutkevich, Zhiznennye plany molodezhx, p. 35.

32. The structure of relative incomes is one particularly important influence. Its role is examined fully in our study of “Incentives for Soviet Professional Manpower,” currently in progress.

33. Kochetov, “Occupational Inclinations … ,” Shkola i proisvodstvo, p. 25.

34. E. Kanevsky, “And Who Will Cook the Kasha?,” Izvestiia, Feb. 10, 1968

35. Shubkin, “The Choice of Occupation,” Sovetskaia pedagogika, p. 60.

36. Iagodkin, V. N., ed., Ekonomicheskie problemy podgotovki kvalifitsirovannykh rabochikh kadrov v sovremennykh usloviiakh (Moscow, 1967), p. 275.Google Scholar

37. Shubkin, “The Choice of Occupation,” Sovetskaia pedagogika, p. 67.

38. This paragraph is based on material appearing in Zdravomyslov, A. G., Rozhin, V. P., and Iadov, V. A., Chelovek i ego rabota (Moscow, 1967), pp. 281–83 Google Scholar; Kantorovich, V, “Sociology and Literature,” Soviet Sociology (Summer 1968), p. 39 Google Scholar; Aitov, N, “Universal Secondary Education and Its Social Consequences,” Molodoi kotnmtmist, 1968, no. 3, pp. 62–64. Google Scholar

39. See note 34.