A Somewhat Different Perspective on Occupational Prestige Ratings

This study presents previously unpublished empirical surveys on the assessment of occupational prestige in Germany from the years 1990, 1997, and 1999. The analysis of individual judgment patterns reveals substantial differences with respect to the absolute judgment level and the differentiation among occupations. Nonetheless, an extraordinarily high degree of relative agreement among raters is evident. The average correlation between two raters is .60, the average agreement of individuals with the group judgment is .77, and the reliability of the group standards is nearly perfect. The correlation between the standards of male and female raters, between male and female occupational titles, and between raters from East Germany and West Germany exceeds .96. Comparisons with German surveys from the 1950s to 2018 and studies from China, Great Britain, Poland, Sweden, Spain, South Korea, Hungary, and the USA from 1925 to 2024 demonstrate high to very high levels of agreement. Nevertheless, beneath the surface of these overwhelming commonalities, several systematic temporal trends and local peculiarities can be identified.