Parent Jobs

The occupational data document the solidly upper middle class and upper class profile of the students of 1955. Most fathers were in business or some profession.

Occupational categories have been collapsed for ease of interpretation. The expanded data reveal that students’ fathers were employed in a wide range of jobs, from teaching, to running a funeral home, to serving as an innkeeper. Other fathers were flight dispatchers, chefs, electrical contractors, clergymen and engineers. Though there were many attorneys, executives, bankers and doctors, there was also a farmhand, a glove manufacturer, and a rural mail carrier.

In the United States, as elsewhere, women’s unpaid domestic labor was not considered “real work.” Only certain occupations -- like teaching, secretarial work, (and in other classes, domestic service) -- were deemed appropriate for women in the 1950s. Most women did not work outside the home, although certain women (working class women and women of color) had much higher labor force participation rates. For our purposes, these data have been recoded to reflect whether or not mothers of students in the MHC class of 1955 worked outside the home. Note that some students’ mothers listed their occupations as “former” or “retired”. This may reflect departure from jobs upon marriage for these women.