Extras
Occupation Rank Explorer
Nobel laureates' fathers came overwhelmingly from high-status occupations. Trace how the income and education standing of any occupation shifted across the census decades, then browse the full table of how over-represented each occupation is among laureate fathers.
Income and education rank over time
Technical professional · U.S., 1850–1970
Complete occupation table
“Expected fathers” is how many laureate fathers an occupation would supply if laureates were drawn in proportion to the population; “over-representation” is the ratio of the actual to the expected share. Table averages weight country–decade occupation cells to match where and when laureates were born. They therefore summarize the international laureate sample and need not equal the U.S.-only trajectories in the rank explorer above.
10 rows
| Technical professional | 79 | 363 | 30.3 | 85.6 | 97.6 | 51.6 | 4.3 | 12.0× |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Managers, officials, and proprietors | 13 | 191 | 49.3 | 92.7 | 85.7 | 27.1 | 7.0 | 3.9× |
| Sales workers | 9 | 33 | 28.5 | 78.2 | 86.3 | 4.7 | 4.0 | 1.2× |
| Clerical and kindred | 20 | 14 | 22.6 | 77.1 | 90.9 | 2.0 | 3.2 | 0.62× |
| Craftsmen | 60 | 54 | 119.1 | 69.2 | 59.8 | 7.7 | 16.9 | 0.45× |
| Operatives | 47 | 16 | 95.0 | 65.5 | 58.5 | 2.3 | 13.5 | 0.17× |
| Service workers | 28 | 3 | 22.5 | 47.4 | 60.1 | 0.43 | 3.2 | 0.13× |
| Farm owners, tenants, and managers | 2 | 23 | 188.5 | 23.9 | 28.3 | 3.3 | 26.8 | 0.12× |
| Laborers | 7 | 6 | 90.6 | 43.8 | 43.0 | 0.85 | 12.9 | 0.07× |
| Farm laborers | 4 | 1 | 61.0 | 4.6 | 9.5 | 0.14 | 8.7 | 0.02× |