Professional prestige
The professional prestige is called the social prestige that a certain profession or professional group enjoys in a society . Relevant influencing variables for the professional prestige are the required training, the income, the degree of personal responsibility, the degree of decision-making and control authority and the expectations of society about the non-professional behavior of the professional.
Determination of the professional prestige
With the question “Could you please pick out the five of them that you value most, that you have the most respect for?”, A German survey institute , the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach , has been asking around 1,500 to 2,000 Germans aged 16 and over for years asked about their respect for certain occupational groups (currently 17). In addition to a ranking scale, there are also shifts over the years. For this purpose, the respondents are presented with a list of well-known professions from doctor to officer and lawyer to union leader. The ranking is published in comparison to the previous survey. The statement now ranks under the heading "professional prestige" in the press and the media. Since the list is open at the bottom (professions can be omitted from the survey), the result could actually only be interpreted as a positive list of professional reputation.
As part of the methodology of this survey, it should be noted that not all professions are mentioned, but only a small selection, as well as that the survey can be questioned qualitatively and methodically: Anyone who has internalized the Western or Central European value system is very likely to cross the doctor, the pastor, the teacher and the professor - then with five professions to be selected there is still one vote for the other professions. A completely different ranking would presumably result in an evaluation with school grades or analogous to the image of politicians in the SPIEGEL surveys (with values from +5 to −5). However, there are no other comparable surveys.
Not only is the selection of occupations subjective in the survey, the names are also changed from time to time in order to influence the results, e.g. In connection with the discussion about manager salaries, for example, “manager” was replaced by “director in a large company” - and in the 2013 survey only the “entrepreneur” who is less criticized in the media than the manager is on the list .
Public Service Professions
According to the Forsa study "Citizens' Survey of Public Service 2013", the following public service professions enjoy the highest reputation in Germany (in descending order):
- Firefighters,
- Geriatric nurses or nurses,
- Doctors,
- Police officers,
- Daycare / kindergarten staff.
Developments over time
The professions of professor and priest , for example, have been very prestigious in public since ancient times, including that of doctors (but not of surgeons and dentists). The graduated prestige of craftsmen and merchants was also quite stable in the class society . With the numerous new professions and their differentiation since industrialization , however, this changed more and more, new job profiles gained prestige, older ones lost or were forgotten. There were also special forms of prestige, unknown elsewhere, among the public , for example in special branches or professions.
"Politicians" have moved from the middle of the short list to the bottom of the list over the years. One of the relative losers in prestige is the profession of lawyer . According to the survey, the reputation of this profession has fallen from 37 percent to 27 percent over the past ten years. The external perception of professional politicians fell even more sharply from the early 1970s, from 27 percent among West Germans to 6 percent today in West Germany and 7 percent in East Germany.
Classifications
Web links
- Allensbacher report No. 16/2001 (PDF; 19 kB), The Allensbacher Berufsprestige-Skala 2001
- Allensbacher report No. 7/2003 (PDF; 14 kB), The Allensbacher Berufsprestige-Skala 2003
- Allensbacher report No. 12/2005 (PDF; 11 kB), The Allensbacher Berufsprestige-Skala 2005
- Allensbacher Report No. 2/2008 (PDF; 12 kB), The Allensbacher Berufsprestige-Skala 2008
- Allensbacher Report No. 2/2011 (PDF; 109 kB), The Allensbacher Berufsprestige-Skala 2011
- Allensbacher short report - August 20, 2013 (PDF), The Allensbacher Berufsprestige-Skala 2013