Bell Curve

160 Cognitive Classes and Social Behavior Unemployment, Idkness , and Injury 16 1other things equal, they are more likely than incompetent people to bein the labor force. Intelligence is also related to time horizons. A malein his 20s has many diverting ways to spend his time, from traveling theworld to seeing how many women he can romance, all of them a lotmore fun than working forty hours a week at a job. A shortsighted manmay be tempted to take a few months off here and there; he thinks hecan always pick up again when he feels like it. A farsighted man tellshimself that if he wants to lay the groundwork for a secure future, hehad better establish a record as a reliable employee now, while he isyoung. Statistically, smart men tend to be more farsighted than dumbmen.In contrast to IQ, the role of parental SES is inherently ambiguous.One possibility is that growing up in a privileged home foretells lowdropout rates, because the parents in such households socialize their sonsto conventional work. But this relationship may break down among thewealthy, whose son has the option of living comfortably without aweekly paycheck. In any case, aren't working-class homes also adamantabout raising sons to go out and get a job? And don't young men fromlower-class homes have a strong economic incentive to stay in the laborforce because they are likely to need the money? The statisticalrelationship with parental SES that shows up in the analysis suggeststhat higher status may facilitate labor force dropout, at least for shortperiods.The analysis of labor force dropout is also the first example in Part I1of a significant relationship that is nonetheless modest. When we knowfrom the outset that 78 percent of white men in Class V-borderlineretarded or below--did not drop out of the labor force for as much as amonth, we can also infer that all sorts of things besides IQ are importantin determining whether someone stays at work. The analysis wehave presented adds to our understanding without enabling us to explainfully the phenomenon of labor force dropout.EDUCATION. Conducting the analysis separately for our two educationalsamples (those with a bachelor's degree, no more and no less, and thosewith a high school diploma, no more and no less) does not change thepicture. High intelligence played a larger independent role in reducinglabor force dropout among the college sample than among the highschool sample. And for both samples, high socioeconomic backgrounddid not decrease labor force dropout independent of IQ and age. Onceagain, the probability of dropout actually increased with socioeconomicbackground.JOB DISABILITIESIn the preceding analysis, we excluded all the cases in which men reportedthat they were unable to work. But it is not that simple. Low cognitiveability increases the risk of being out of the labor force for healthyyoung men, but it also increases the risk of not being healthy. The breakdownby cognitive classes is shown in the following table. The rela-Job Disability Among Young White MalesNo. per 1,000No. per 1,000 WhoWho Reported BeingReported Limits inPrevented fromAmount or Kind ofWorking by Health Cognitive Work by HealthProblems Class Problems0 I Very Bright 135 I1 Bright 2 15 111 Normal 3736 IV Dull 4578 V Very dull 6211 Overall average 33tionship of IQ with both variables is conspicuous but more dramatic formen reporting that their disability prevents them from working. Therate per 1,000 of men who said they were prevented from working by aphysical disability jumped sevenfold from Class 111 to Class IV, and thenmore than doubled again from Class IV to Class V.A moment's thought suggests a plausible explanation: Men with lowintelligence work primarily in blue-collar, manual jobs and thus aremore likely to get hurt than are men sitting around conference tables.Being injured is more likely to shrink the job market for a blue-collarworker than a for a white-collar worker. An executive with a limp canstill be an executive; a manual laborer with a limp faces a more seriousjob impediment. This plausible hypothesis appears to be modestly confirmedin a simple cross-classification of disabilities with type of job.