The Harris Poll^® #54, October 16, 2002

Scientists, Doctors, Teachers and Military Officers Top the List of Most Prestigious Occupations

Military officers and police officers gain prestige while doctors, teachers and clergy slip
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by Humphrey Taylor

The events of September 11^th and the war in Afghanistan appear to have had some effect on people’s attitudes towards different professions and occupations. Every year, The Harris Poll^® asks the public to rate the prestige of seventeen different occupations. In this year’s survey, the number of people who assign high prestige to military officers and police officers has increased from the August 2001 survey, fielded just before 9/11. At the same time, this year’s survey finds significant drops in prestige for several highly rated professions including doctors, teachers, and the clergy.

These are the results of The Harris Poll, a nationwide telephone survey conducted by Harris Interactive^® from August 15 – 19, 2002 with a sample of 1,011 adults.

Some of the key findings of this survey include:

• Scientists (51%) and doctors (50%) continue to top the list of professions that are thought to have "very great prestige." And most people (76% and 80%, respectively) think that they have either very great or considerable prestige. However, there has been a significant decline in the perception of doctors; last year fully 61% (compared to 50% now) thought they had "very great prestige."
• Military officers and teachers come next on the list. Forty-seven percent of adults think that both of them have "very great prestige" while 74% think that military officers and 70% think that teachers have "considerable" or "very great prestige." Last year the numbers saying "very great prestige" was six points higher for teachers (54%) and seven points lower for military officers (40%).
• Police officers have also recorded a modest improvement, from 37% saying that they have "very great prestige" to 40% this year.
• The scandals in the Roman Catholic Church concerning child abuse also seem to have taken a toll. Those who say ministers or clergymen have "very great prestige" have fallen seven points, from 43% last year to 36% now.
• Accountants (only 13% saying "very great prestige"), union leaders (14%), lawyers (15%) and bankers (15%) get the lowest marks (but of course many occupations – including pollsters – are not included!).

One other change is also statistically significant but is probably not a real change. In all the previous surveys we asked about the prestige of the "businessman." This year we changed the question to "business executive" and the results have improved sharply from 12% to 18%. Given what has been happening on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms from Enron to WorldCom, it seems unlikely that this is a real change. More likely, "business executives" sounds a little better to some people than "businessman."

"I am going to read off a number of different occupations. For each, would you tell me if you feel it is an occupation of very great prestige, considerable prestige, some prestige or hardly any prestige at all?"

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** Questions contain reference to "man" in these profession titles reflecting how they were originally asked. They remain the same in order not to disrupt the trending of the data related to these professions.

"I am going to read off a number of different occupations. For each, would you tell me if you feel it is an occupation of very great prestige, considerable prestige, some prestige or hardly any prestige at all?"

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* No trend; NA not asked

** In earlier surveys we used the words "policeman" (now changed to "police officer") and businessman (now changed to "business executive") which may account for the changes from 2001 to 2002.

The Harris Poll^® was conducted by telephone within the United States between August 15 and 19, 2002 among a nationwide cross section of 1,011 adults (18+). Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

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