Studies of occupational history: III. The stability of occupational groups of the Roe system.

Abstract

If the groups of the Eoe classification system were unrelated to real categories in the occupational structure, the groups would be random subsamples of the total sample. Measures for three kinds of stability were denned. The frequencies of job changes within the group and to other groups were compared with each other and with the total sample by computing chi-squares. The groups were found to differ significantly from each other with respect to the measures of stability. When people are grouped according to this classification, their occupational behavior is not random and is associated in some way, direct or indirect, with the group to which they belong.

Frequency and Direction of Managerial Occupational Change

“…Thus, the majority of changers did not alter their general occupational orientations, but rather moved to occupational environments that were more congruent with their developing personality traits and goals. This trend supports the findings of Roe (Roe et al, 1966;Roe & Hutchinson, 1968, 1969, Holland (Holland & Gottfredson, 1976;Gottfredson & Daiger, 1977), and others (Byrne, 1975;Kleinberg, 1976), which suggest that career stability is more apparent than the current discussion on change would imply.…”

“…The occupational classification systems developed by Holland (1973) and Roe (1956) provide a meaningful way of researching occupational change because they illustrate the direction of moves in psychological terms. Research using both Holland's system (Gottfredson, 1976;Parsons & Witgel, 1974), which organizes categories on the basis of preferences for occupations as an expression of personality, and Roe's system (Roe, 1956;Roe, Hubbard, Hutchinson, & Bateman, 1966;Roe & Hutchinson, 1968, 1969Roe & Klos, 1972), which is based primarily on the factorization of interests, reveals that, although areas of divergence exist, most people tend to remain in the same occupational category when they change jobs. That is, moves occur most often in the same group (no-step change) and least often within the most widely separated groups (two-, three-, or four-step changes).…”

A Test of the Independence of Fields and Levels in Roe's Occupational Classification

“…Most studies investigating Roe's (1956) occupational classification disregard the level dimension (Jones 1965;Lunneborg & Lunneborg 1975;Roe & Hutchinson 1969). An exception to these are the studies by Meir (1973Meir ( , 1975 on the Ramak interest inventory (Meir & Barak 1974), in which occupational titles serve adequate representation of fields and levels.…”