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Parental occupations of male students are quite similar to those of female students.
Female students are slightly more likely to have fathers in engineering, and slightly less
likely to have fathers in managerial or administrative positions, than are male students
(Table ID-9).
TABLE ID-9
PARENTAL OCCUPATIONS OF MALE AND FEMALE ENGINEERING
STUDENTS
(%’s)
Fathers Mothers
Gender of Student
Occupational
Group of Parent
Total Males Females Total Males Females
Managerial/administrative 21.8 21.8 22.0 8.9 10.0 3.8
Professional 27.1 28.6 27.1 42.9 42.9 45.3
Engineering 8.9 7.4 14.8 0 0 0 E
Other science, math,
computer science
5.0 5.0 4.9 1.9 2.3 0
Education 5.6 5.4 6.6 25.7 25.2 27.3
Technicians/related support .3 .4 0 2.6 3.3 0
Clerical/administrative support 1.0 1.3 0 26.4 25.7 28.2
Service 5.9 6.3 5.1 5.6 5.7 5.7
Sales 9.9 9.7 10.2 9.3 9.5 9.4
Blue-collar 32.1 31.9 35.6 4.1 2.9 7.5
Precision production/craft 23.4 23.1 24.6 .4 0 1.8
Operators & laborers 8.9 8.7 9.8 3.7 2.3 5.7
Total %* 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
(n) (303) (303) (303) (269) (269) (269)
*Rounded off. May not total 100.0 due to “other” (e.g. military, farming) among the employed.
We coded the occupations of the students’ parents with the latest national survey of
prestige scores available in the United States, the standardized prestige scores obtained in
the 1989 NORC survey (updated for census categories of 1990) (Nakao & Treas, 1994).
There are no gender differences in the mean prestige scores of mothers and fathers (Table
ID-10), indicating that the male and female students come from similar social classes.
ID-61