20,700 American men aged 20 through 64 by the U.S. Bureau of Census in 1962, Blau and Duncan biased their research toward an investigation of males (Stark, 1996, p. 280). This research bias was repeated in the Jenks study which although attempting to modify Blau and Duncan's research by focusing on "the effects of family background on occupational achievement by comparing sets of brothers" still neglected consideration of how women are affected (Stark, 1996, p. 281). One cannot criticize Jenks for his interest in furthering research on status attainment by intensifying the focus on male activity, but one can wonder why women were originally and then frequently neglected as an appropriate point of focus in status attainment studies.
Studies conducted by Yinon Cohen and Andrea Tyree (1986) broadened the field of inquiry by heightening the emphasis upon the poor. Collecting a large sample of data from variant families over a ten-year period, Cohen and Tyree included an extra-large sample of very poor families. Their study indicated that "education has greater i
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