The major purpose of this study is to construct a standard scheme for the measurement of the 'occupational status' in Korea. According to the preceding studies in the Western sociology, occupational status index is classified into two categories. First, 'occupational prestige' shows the position of the occupations in the job hierarchy, which represents people's subjective cognition and evaluation. Second, 'occupational socioeconomic status' represents the estimation by the objective features of those.
For the purpose mentioned above, it is necessary to construct a valid index on the hierarchy of the occupational socioeconomic status in Korea. In order to do this, this study formulates the regression equation as follows: Y=a+b·X1+c·X2(Y: the score of the occupational status; X1: median of monthly income; X2: median of the years of education)
The result shows that 'managers' and 'professionals' enjoy high scores. In other words, they are at the upper position in the occupational hierarchy. 'Service workers and 'construction·machinary·manufacturing workers' locate in the middle, while the 'workers in agriculture, forestry and fishing' are at the low position. In addition, in case of the same occupational category, the jobs which need elaborated skills and knowledge tend to get higher scores.
Our finding is compared with a previous finding by Hong(1983) to figure out the change in occupational status during the last 20 years. The comparison shows that the overall occupational status structure has remained stable.