Fraternal Resemblance in Educational Attainment and Occupational Status

This article develops simple structural equation models of the regression of occupational status on schooling in a sample of 518 Wisconsin high school graduates and their brothers. The models correct for response variability and incorporate a family variance component structure. Methodological complications follow from the facts that the sample consists of sibling pairs; that members of a cohort of high school graduates, rather than their families, are the sampling units; and that the primary respondents are informants about some of the characteristics of their brothers. The regression of occupational status on educational attainment is relatively insensitive both to response variability and to the specification of common family factors. Family membership accounts for about half the variance in schooling and more than one-third of the variance in occupational standing, but there is little evidence that failure to control family background leads to upward bias in estimates of the effect of schooling on occupational status.