The year saw the completion of a paper by Carmi Schooler and Carrie Schoenbach that directly compared social classes--distinguished in terms of ownership and control of the means of production--with occupational status, occupational self-direction and income as determinants of income in the United States, Japan and Poland. They found that occupational self- direction directly affects income only in Poland, education affects income only in the U.S., and occupational status has an independent effect in both the U.S. and Japan but not in Poland. Ironically, social class had its greatest effect in the supposedly class free society of communist Poland. This pattern of findings has important implications for a variety of theories about the structure of society. This year the LSES has also begun a potentially important new research initiative. With funding help provided by an inter-agency agreement with NIA, we have begun work on a longitudinal study of the reciprocal effects of social environments and psychological functioning in older people. The empirical basis for this investigation would be a resurvey of a sample of men and women last interviewed in 1974 as part of the Laboratory's research program on the psychological effects of occupational conditions.
| Caplan, Leslie J; Schooler, Carmi (2003) The roles of fatalism, self-confidence, and intellectual resources in the disablement process in older adults. Psychol Aging 18:551-61 |
| Schooler, C; Mulatu, M S (2001) The reciprocal effects of leisure time activities and intellectual functioning in older people: a longitudinal analysis. Psychol Aging 16:466-82 |
| Schooler, C; Mulatu, M S; Oates, G (1999) The continuing effects of substantively complex work on the intellectual functioning of older workers. Psychol Aging 14:483-506 |
| Mulatu, M S; Schooler, C (1999) Longitudinal effects of occupational, psychological, and social background characteristics on health of older workers. Ann N Y Acad Sci 896:406-8 |
