Analyzing the up-growing tendency of the occupation patterns in my family tree, it is essential to mention the influence of the crucial historical periods on the choice of occupation. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when the capitalistic market structure only started its development, my great-grandparents were primarily devoted to administrative and merchant activities. Farming and accounting are also falling for these categories. Grandparents’ variability in the occupations shows the development of different spheres: medicine and technology. One grandfather was a civil engineer, while the other grandmother worked as a nursing assistant. The capitalistic market structure still affected the choices of my grandparents. One grandmother was executive secretary, while the grandfather was a businessman. Considering my parents’ careers, they are more modern and comply with the need of today’s society. Computer engineering and restaurant management are highly developing specialties today that started to appear at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Today, I work as a telecommunications technician to ensure the quality of the technical aspect of communications. This profession complies with the developing need of modern society in the technical factors of online communications.
The ascending vertical mobility can be seen in both grandmothers’ occupational choices because they changed their social status compared with their parents. The horizontal social mobility is depicted in the choices of my father and his father. There are also particular occupational patterns within the family tree. For example, the father’s line is more concerned with the technological sphere, while the mother’s ancestors worked primarily communicating with people. Within the generations, the occupations comply with the social developmental needs.
Based on my family’s generation tree, it can be emphasized that the occupational variety can be described through an intergenerational transmission pattern. There is a tendency for the children to take similar occupations as their parents based on sex. For example, all the women in my mother’s line mostly work with people. At the same time, her male line includes businessmen. The same pattern can be seen with me, my father, and my grandfather. The mentioned family member changed the occupation but stayed in the same field. The variety in the professions can also be explained through personal relationships between parents and their children.
The main social force which affected my ancestors’ choices is education. More opportunities allowed them to learn more about society and made them relevant for their interests’ choices. As mentioned earlier, the generation tree reflects the changes in the family and community (Ferris & Stein, 2020). Thus, I believe that social media and the economic system were two other forces affecting the lives of my ancestors. Generally, there is a growing pattern of social status through the generations. The better financial position allowed them to get more educational opportunities and be promoted to another social level. Media often advertise and advance the necessary for particular society occupations as the most profitable ones. Thus, I believe that they planned their future considering the most popular for their period professions.
Society and social institutions often shape human self-perception, which influences the choice of occupation. My family members are no exception in this case. As far as the professions develop structurally and logically based on the previous generations’ ones, it is rational to highlight the family institution. Many ancestors and I, choosing the occupation, followed in the footsteps of one of the parents. Analyzing the generation tree in detail, I can state that the choices of grandparents were affected by the state institutions. It seems that through the automatization of many professions, they were forced to go into new spheres and develop new skills extrinsic for their parents (Ferris & Stein, 2020). For my parents’ generation line, the family institution is one of the most important. Such a conclusion can be made because the children’s professions combine some features of both their parents’ occupations. For me, education and family institutions influenced my choice. Through education and my parents, I realized the role of online and telecommunications in our society.
Analyzing occupational tree according to Weber’s theory of life chances, it is evident that our family has developed based on the particular material status. The family had the positive privileges class from the grandparents’ line: farmers and merchants. Therefore, they provided the future generations with a number of chances for development. Each line offered more opportunities for their children due to improving their social status, which was possible thanks to the individuals’ talents and efforts. The meritocracy theory can be applied in this case. It is pretty challenging to achieve considerable success from a low-income family in a capitalistic society (Ferris & Stein, 2020).). However, some people are able to fight this stereotype and become successful. In my family, the father’s mother is talented, having a hard-working personality type. She managed to become successful, even entirely different from her parents’ sphere.
From my point of view, the intersectionality theory cannot be mainly applied in my family generation tree. Even the most distant known generation reflected no explicit sex or other types of discrimination. Probably, the financial position could have affected the forming of experience of some members. However, judging by my family members’ results in their occupations, it is unlikely they had been humiliated or masterfully overcome all those difficulties. There are no intersectional discrimination tendencies seen in the occupation tree.
Reference
Ferris, K., & Stein, J. (2020). The real world: An introduction to sociology. W.W. Norton & Company.