Measures of socioeconomic status have been used in research dealing with health and medicine, business, and various disciplines of the social sciences for many decades. This website presents information about one such socioeconomic measure now referred to as the Nam-Powers-Boyd (NPB) Occupational Status Scale, which is a general use measure. The scale ranging from zero to 100 builds on analysis of occupational status of all participants in the experienced civilian labor force enumerated in U.S. censuses. Scores refer to occupational groups, not individuals, although individuals can be assigned the score for their occupational group. NPB scores for any given occupation reflect the share of the labor force in occupations with lower median education and median earned income than that occupation, so these scores measure occupational status relative to other occupations.
Before Charles Nam arrived at Florida State University in the mid-1960s, he already had taken the first step in 1963 at the Census Bureau towards creating a standard measure of occupational status. This work continued in collaboration with his former Census colleague Mary Powers of Fordham University after he helped to found the Center for Study of Population at FSU. After two decades of elaboration, they published two books in 1983 (Nam & Powers 1983, Powers 1983) summarizing the development of what had become known as the Nam-Powers Index of Occupational Status. One of the contributors to Powers’ 1983 edited volume, Monica Boyd, began collaborating with Nam and Powers and subsequently joined the FSU faculty in the 1990s. The resulting Nam-Powers-Boyd (NPB) index of Occupational Status has been used by researchers in fields from economics to medical research—see additional citations to the evolution of NPB measures and their application in the “References” section of this Archive.
The resulting Nam-Powers-Boyd (NPB) index of Occupational Status has become enshrined as a pre-calculated variable available in most Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) of Census data produced at the University of Minnesota, the most common and most convenient source of precalculated NPB scores. Visit https://usa.ipums.org/usa/ for access to these public use microdata files to assist your research. To replicate or otherwise experiment with the NPB scores themselves, see software algorithms in the “Coding Tools for NPB Scores in IPUMS” section of this Archive.
If you have conducted research involving Nam-Powers-Boyd Occupational Status Scores, we would welcome information about your research that you might provide through the “Contact Us” section of this Archive.