Status Attainment Model

The status attainment model, introduced by Peter Blau and Otis Dudley Duncan in The American Occupational Structure (1967), is a recursive path model that explains an individual's occupational status from their social origins and intervening achievements. In its basic form, father's education and father's occupation influence the respondent's education and first job, which in turn shape current occupational status. By decomposing the link between origins and destinations into direct and education-mediated indirect paths, it established that education is the principal channel through which advantage is transmitted across generations.