Deprivation, Disadvantage and Occupational Choice

Abstract

The performance of many actions, whether physiological or social, is often dependent upon the preceding career of the person involved. Thus a woman’s success in childbirth is conditioned by the whole of her prior physical and social career. My purpose here is to indicate some of the ways in which movement into the labour force is influenced by anomalous prior careers. More specifically the intention is to provide a conceptual framework which will identify some important ways in which groups of individuals may come to choose first jobs that in one respect or another are below their capacity.