Workforce and Occupational Statuses of Aborigines

Students of social stratification are nearly unanimous in the view that occupation is the pivot of the stratification system in industrial societies. If only one measure were possible, occupation would be chosen because it can serve as an indicator of earned income, of probable skill and training, of authority, of prestige and of other elements that make up an individual’s position in the social order. For the same reasons, differences in workforce and occupational statuses measure the economic and social subordination or superordination of identifiable populations, and changes in such indicators are the best clues to alterations in social rankings and in the social evaluations from which such rankings arise.