Occupation.(28)  Table 7.5 compares the occupations of recruit and CPS parents.  Although there was considerable similarity between the occupations held by DoD parents and those held by CPS parents, the data show that DoD parents were underrepresented in certain high-status occupations.  Both DoD fathers and mothers were less likely to have either executive, administrative, and managerial occupations, or professional occupations.  In addition, DoD fathers were underrepresented in sales occupations.  On the other hand, DoD fathers were more likely than CPS fathers to have occupations involving precision production, craft, and repair.  They were also slightly more prevalent in protective service and transportation occupations.  DoD mothers were more likely than their CPS counterparts to be in service occupations.  Finally, both DoD fathers and mothers were more likely to be in the military than were CPS parents.(29)  There were no significant differences between the occupations of Active and Reserve Component parents.

To determine occupation, recruits provided open-ended descriptions of their parents' jobs.  CPS respondents answered similarly about their own primary occupation.  The descriptions were manually coded to 3-digit Census occupation codes, which were then collapsed into 13 major Census categories.(go back)
Differences in the number of parents in the military are due, at least in part, to differences in the way these occupations are coded in the military and civilian surveys.  In the CPS data, an occupation is assigned a military code only if the military job cannot be classified in another occupational category.  In the DoD data, all parents in the military are assigned a military occupational code.(go back)

Go to next .