Duncan Socioeconomic Index
The Duncan Socioeconomic Index (SEI), created by Otis Dudley Duncan in 1961, assigns each occupation a socioeconomic status score derived from the education and income of its incumbents. Duncan calibrated the score by regressing the prestige ratings of a limited set of occupations on the percentage of incumbents with high education and high income, then used that equation to predict a status score for every occupation in the census. The SEI thus extends a small number of prestige ratings to the entire occupational structure on a 0–100 scale.
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Sources
- Duncan, O. D. (1961). A socioeconomic index for all occupations. In A. J. Reiss Jr. (Ed.), Occupations and Social Status (pp. 109–138). Free Press of Glencoe. link ↗
- Hauser, R. M., & Warren, J. R. (1997). Socioeconomic indexes for occupations: A review, update, and critique. Sociological Methodology, 27(1), 177–298. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9531.271028 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Duncan Socioeconomic Index (SEI) for Occupations. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/sociology/duncan-socioeconomic-index
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
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