Sociological Perspectives

The causes of household water conservation are studied using combined survey and billing-record data on 431 households in a community that recently experienced a severe water shortage. The largest reductions in water use, in absolute terms, occurred in households that had been using the most water to begin with. Smaller users often made larger percentage reductions. The most effective conservation steps involved voluntary changes in private behavior. Such steps were more likely to arise from idealistic than from economic motives, and were more common in larger, better-educated households. Idealistic motives themselves were more common in younger, better-educated, and more affluent households. In contrast, economic motives were more common in poorer, less well-educated households. Although income and education are important variables in the model, their direct and indirect effects nearly cancel each other out, so they are not good predictors of conservation. These findings have both practical and theoretical implications.

Game theory is a type of rational decisionmaking model. As such, it assumes well-defined actors who know they are in conflict, know their strategic options, and have stable evaluations of possible outcomes. Furthermore, it is ahistorical. These assumptions severely limit the theory, particularly in its application to labor conflict. Evidence is presented that labor conflict is an historically-shaped process in which sides are not always clearly defined, actors are often unaware that they are in a conflict, and in which many strategic options emerge and evaluations change in the course of struggle. Game theory assumptions are more likely to be met during periods of stable prosperity in which neither rank and file workers nor “outside” employers intervene in negotiations. When the assumptions are not met, resulting conflict types can be categorized by whether strategies and payoffs are known or emergent, and by the number of sides that are organized.

This is a sample study of two chapters of the Korean Automobile and Transport Workers' Union (KATWU), located in the capitol city of Seoul, Korea. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether the membership of the union had lost their zest for democratic governance within the union organization in light of the government's restrictive control of union activities and the bureaucratization of the organization. Results of the survey reveal that the rank and file of KATWU have been effectively using the procedural guarantees imposed by the government even in the absence of a formalized party system. The rank and file have been active in the election process and by their participation in the internal government of the union, have established control of the leadership structure. Without a true adversarial relationship with management and with the intrusion of government in the affairs of labor and management, it is questionable whether labor leaders can fully exercise the power of force they have behind them. In this sense, accountability is difficult to test. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the rank and file have established a pattern of leadership accountability by retaining control of the leadership structure.

Based upon 1970 U.S. Census data and an ethnic stratification analytical framework, this study examines the socioeconomic roles of Asian-American women in the United States relative to Anglo women. In general, Asian-American women are more likely to participate in the labor force and to have above-average earnings. The earnings advantage of Asian women can be explained by their superior educational qualifications, greater levels of full-time work, and geographical location. In spite of their relatively favorable economic position, some Asian women, particularly recent immigrants, remain in the low wage sector of the economy.

Unionization and professionalization can be seen as alternative modes of group occupational mobility (Haug and Sussman, 1971). Each mode implies a distinct ideology. But empirical evidence from a case study of an occupation attempting professionalization shows that ideology is not correlated with actual membership. It is suggested that in a newly formed professional association, network ties are more important than ideology in determining who joins. Other correlates of union and professional orientations are examined. Commitment to the occupation is found to be important.

This analysis examines the efficacy of using “the parametric strategy” when doing multiple regression analyses using multiple R and related statistics. The parametric strategy involves transforming ordinal scale data into interval scale measures by assigning rank ordered equal interval scale values to ordinal categories. Studies that have examined the adequacy of the parametric strategy in regression analyses have (1) examined only bivariate, and not multivariate, relations, (2) usually not adequately examined measurement imprecision effects due to ordered polytomies in the data and (3) used simulation data, not real data from substantive sociological contexts. In this study an experiment using real data is undertaken to assess measurement imprecision effects in multiple regressions; observed values of multivariate regression statistics are found to diverge substantially from true values where the parametric strategy is applied to data involving ordered polytomies. The implications of these findings are discussed.