Deck 2: Studying the World of Work

Question 1

The U.S.government definition of "unemployed" includes those who

A)are temporarily not working because of illness, but hold a job.
B)are without a job but are actively searching for employment.
C)are over the age of 16 and who are not working at least 5 hours per week.
D)volunteer fewer than 20 hours per week.
E)work unpaid 15 hours or more in a family business.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Ester Reiter's ethnography of Burger King (in Chapter 2) found that making
Hamburgers was a favorite task of the workers because

A)it was mechanized.
B)it eliminated social interaction with other employees.
C)it allowed workers some minimal discretion.
D)it was the major product of the fast food restaurant.
E)they had learned this task at home.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which of the following is an achieved characteristic?

A)race
B)age
C)years of schooling completed
D)number of brothers and sisters
E)sex

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Background characteristics of survey respondents such as sex, race, or age are

A)described.
B)pretested.
C)achieved.
D)ascribed.
E)ordinal.

Question 5

What is a conglomerate?

A)a firm that employs workers of many occupations
B)a multinational company
C)a set of firms with interlocking directorates
D)a parent company with firms in different industries
E)a firm that specializes in cement and concrete

Question 6

Industry classifications are based on which of the following?

A)the specific skills a worker uses
B)the technology used in the workplace where the worker works
C)the products a worker helps to produce
D)the amount of status associated with a worker's job
E)the number of workers at a work site

Question 7

The relative disadvantage of sample surveys is

A)response error.
B)lack of reliability.
C)lack of generalizability.
D)experimenter bias.
E)interviewer fatigue.

Question 8

Sociologists who study work use as their unit of analysis
All of the following EXCEPT

A)the labor force.
B)the worker.
C)occupations.
D)income tax returns.
E)unions.

Question 9

Who is counted in the numerator of the unemployment rate?

A)the unemployed people
B)the members of the labor force
C)the employed people
D)the target population
E)the general population

Question 10

Two standards for evaluating the quality of data are

A)skewness and deviation.
B)observation and surveying.
C)validity and reliability.
D)sample and population.
E)clarity and proportion.

Question 11

"A branch of economic activity devoted to the production of a particular good or
Service" is the definition of

A)a profession.
B)an industry.
C)an occupation.
D)a corporation.
E)an establishment.

Question 12

The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines "discouraged workers" as those who

A)report little or no job satisfaction.
B)do not make a living wage.
C)have ceased looking for employment.
D)have been black-listed by anti-union companies.
E)have low productivity

Question 13

According to the textbook (Chapter 2), in what order should we read the parts of a
Table?

A)entries; headline and source note; left-hand column ("stub") and column headings; footnotes
B)entries; left-hand column ("stub") and column headings; footnotes and source note; headline
C)headline; left-hand column ("stub") and column headings; footnotes and source note; entries
D)headline; left-hand column ("stub") and source note; column headings; footnotes
E)footnotes and source note; entries; left-hand column ("stub") and column headings; headline

Question 14

Workers in occupations that were traditionally filled by women are called

A)white-collar workers.
B)blue-collar workers.
C)professionals.
D)technicians
E)pink-collar workers.

Question 15

A labor force participation rate of 60% means that

A)60% of the people who want jobs have found them.
B)60% of the target population is either employed or unemployed.
C)the unemployment rate is 40%.
D)only 10% of women are at work.
E)people are working at only 60% of their maximum efficiency.

Question 16

A research technique that studies one establishment through the use of interviews,
Documents, and other materials is called

A)a sample survey.
B)a work history.
C)an establishment survey.
D)a case study.
E)a non-participant observation.

Question 17

Organizational collaboration at GM was used as an example of which method of research?

A)a sample survey of secretaries
B)analysis of government statistics
C)multiple regression analysis
D)a case study
E)historical research

Question 18

An establishment can be defined as

A)a production site.
B)a firm.
C)a company.
D)a conglomerate.
E)a subsidiary.

Question 19

To be counted as unemployed, a person

A)must be receiving unemployment compensation.
B)must have held a job at some time in the past.
C)must be actively seeking work.
D)must be registered at the state employment office.
E)must be at least 18 years of age.

Question 20

What do occupational classifications identify?

A)the products a worker helps to produce
B)blue-collar, white-collar, or pink-collar work
C)the kind of work a worker does
D)for whom a worker works (for example, her/himself, a small firm, a multinational company, etc.)
E)how much training a worker has

Question 21

A good survey includes all of the following EXCEPT

A)valid questions.
B)a representative set of respondents.
C)minimal response error.
D)reliable questions.
E)experimenter bias.

Question 22

Which of the following correctly distinguishes case studies
From ethnographies?

A)Ethnographies are usually more limited in time, space, and types of data collected than case studies.
B)Case studies are usually done covertly; ethnographies usually require cooperation from management.
C)Ethnographies collect more varied types of data than case studies.
D)Case studies require participant-observation, while ethnographies can be done through participant-observation or nonparticipant-observation.
E)Case studies are unable to take the worker's perspective into account.

Question 23

When sociologists conduct sample surveys, they ask questions of a systematic sample of people.What is the relationship of the sample to the population of interest?

A)The sample is the same as the population.
B)The sample is representative of the population.
C)The sample answers questions that the population refuses to answer.
D)The sample has a smaller response error than the population.
E)The sample represents only the working part of the population.

Question 24

Ethical issues are most likely to be posed by

A)a sample that does not represent the population.
B)a study with experimenter bias.
C)a study with response error.
D)a covert study.
E)an establishment study.

Question 25

The Standard Occupational Classification consists of

A)major groups.
B)minor groups.
C)broad occupations.
D)detailed occupations.
E)all of the above

Question 26

A researcher wants to demonstrate that in 2008 there are relatively more women
Engaged in paid labor than there were in 1958.The best measure for showing this
Change is

A)the unemployment rate for women.
B)the labor force participation rate for women.
C)the number of women who are NILF.
D)the number of women who were covered by Social Security payroll taxes.
E)the number of women who filed federal income tax returns.

Question 27

Vivian is a college sophomore.She takes four courses at her college, which qualifies her for full-time status at the college.She also works 20 hours a week as a cashier at the Student Union.How is she classified in terms of the labor force?

A)She is NILF because she is a full-time student.
B)She is in the labor force, but she is not counted as employed because she is a part-time worker.
C)She is in the labor force and she is employed.
D)Her classification depends upon whether she is younger than 18 years or older than 18 years.
E)Her classification depends upon whether she wants to work full-time or not.

Question 28

An unemployment rate of 5% means

A)five out of every one hundred adults are unemployed.
B)five out of every one hundred people who want a job cannot find one.
C)five out of every one hundred experienced workers cannot find a job.
D)five out of every one hundred labor force participants are actively seeking work.
E)five out of every one hundred labor force participants are currently receiving unemployment compensation benefits.

Question 29

Characteristics of work that are hard to measure often involve

A)experimental bias.
B)the Hawthorne Effect.
C)both objective and subjective elements.
D)official labor force statistics.
E)sample surveys.

Question 30

All noninstitutionalized persons over the age of 16 are eligible to be

A)members of the labor force.
B)employed.
C)unemployed.
D)NILF.
E)all of the above

Question 31

The economically active population is an equivalent term to

A)the labor force.
B)blue-collar workers.
C)the labor force plus the discouraged workers.
D)the employed minus the unemployed.
E)c and d

Question 32

Why does the government measure unemployment through the Current Population
Survey?

A)The government needs to know how many people will apply for unemployment compensation benefits.
B)The government needs to know how many people should pay income tax.
C)Private employers do not care about unemployment, and so no private-sector firm would collect unemployment data.
D)The level of unemployment is an indicator of the overall health of the economy.
E)Unemployment is too rare an event to be measured by the census.

Question 33

Which of the following yields the largest number of people?

A)All the people who receive unemployment benefits.
B)All of the people who are unemployed.
C)All of the people who are unemployed plus discouraged workers.
D)All of the people who register for work at the state employment office.
E)All of the people who have stopped looking for work because they believe they cannot find it.

Question 34

How occupations are perceived by others is measured by

A)occupational prestige.
B)socioeconomic status scores.
C)detailed occupation groupings.
D)mixed methods.
E)establishment surveys.

Question 35

People who are 'with a job, but not at work' represent a sub-category of the

A)employed.
B)unemployed.
C)discouraged workers.
D)NILF.
E)unpaid family workers.

Question 36

An interlocking directorate is

A)an illegal arrangement among businesses.
B)a geographic linkage among establishments.
C)a way that firms are linked through overlapping board memberships.
D)a government agency that produces labor statistics.
E)a trade association that regulates jigsaw puzzle production.

Question 37

A case study of an establishment is most likely to present a misleading picture of the firm if

A)the firm is publicly held.
B)the firm is a subsidiary.
C)the firm is a parent company.
D)the firm's parent company is a conglomerate.
E)the firm has only one establishment.

Question 38

Michael is an 18-year-old high school student who lives with his parents and watches a lot of MTV.He has never held a job and has never looked for a job.How would Michael's labor force status be classified by the U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics?

A)not eligible to be counted as a member of the labor force
B)a member of the labor force, but unemployed
C)employed in the labor force (as a student)
D)eligible to be counted as a member of the labor force but not actually in the labor force
E)able but not willing to work

Question 39

A sociologist wants to know how satisfied workers at Company X are with their jobs.She goes to personnel records to find out how many years each worker has been with the company as an indicator of how satisfied they must be.One benefit of her method is that later researchers can easily use her method to produce the same data and results.A colleague argues with her, however, that years with the company is not an accurate measure of job satisfaction.The sociologist's method might be said to be

A)reliable and valid.
B)reliable but not valid.
C)valid and generalizable.
D)valid but not reliable.
E)neither valid nor reliable.

Question 40

An ethnography differs from personal anecdote in that

A)an anecdote is humorous.
B)not all anecdotes are about work.
C)the ethnographic observer is more detached and objective.
D)an ethnography is not about real people.
E)an ethnography is not reliable.

Question 41

In a certain industry, two large producers have just merged to form a much larger company.What indicator is most likely to reflect this change?

A)the unemployment rate
B)the balance of trade deficit
C)the labor force participation rate
D)the occupational prestige scores
E)the four-firm concentration ratio

Question 42

An advantage of multiple methods is

A)less response error.
B)less experimental bias.
C)greater reliability.
D)greater government subsidy.
E)less attention to ascribed characteristics.

Question 43

In "Putting on the Hair Shirt," (Box 2.2), the ethnographer demonstrated an ability to

A)participate fully in the work group.
B)learn sensitive information about on-the-job failures
C)create a Hawthorne Effect.
D)operate covertly.
E)both a and c