Practice question · Multiple choice
An odds ratio is the standard measure of relative mobility. How does it strip out the effect of a changing occupational structure?
Hints
- Ask what happens to a within-group ratio when every destination category is enlarged proportionally.
- The measure never looks at how many positions there are, only at how two groups divide between them.
Show the answer
A. It compares origin groups on their internal odds of one destination over another, unaffected by total positions of either kind.
Why
Because the odds are formed inside each origin group and then compared, the calculation never touches the size of the destination categories. Expanding the service class raises both groups’ odds together, and the ratio between them is unchanged, which is precisely the property that makes it a measure of openness rather than of movement.
Practise Class, Mobility and Its Myths
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