Social class, work and the family: some implications of the father's occupation for familial relationships and sons' career decisions

The effects of both vertical and nonvertical dimensions of fathers' work on family relations and vocational socialization are explored through a multivariate analysis of data from several hundred male participants in the 1962-1967 Michigan Student Study. Closeness to father emerged as an important, structurally related intervening variable, mediating the transmission of different occupational reward values, depending on the situs, prestige, and functional focus of his work. In more prestigious occupational origin groups, closeness was associated with nonvertical patterns of intergeneration occupational movement. The analysis suggested that the combination of a prestigious paternal role model and a close father son relationship engenders the most occupationally differentiated vocational socialization.