# Donald Treiman

Donald Treiman (born October 13, 1940) is an American sociologist, currently the Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of California, Los Angeles and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Treiman is known for his work on intergenerational mobility, occupational prestige, occupational socio-economic status scales, and the effects of internal migration on health.

## Education

Donald Treiman completed his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Sociology at Reed College in 1962. Following his undergraduate studies, he attended the University of Chicago, where he completed his Master of Art (M.A.) in Sociology in 1965 and his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Sociology in 1967. During his graduate studies, Treiman developed his skills as a survey researcher at the National Opinion Research Center.

## Academic career

Treiman began his academic career after completing his doctorate at the University of Chicago.

### Early Academic Roles (1967-1977)

Treiman's first academic appointment was as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin (1967-1970). During his tenure, he focused on social demography and spent much time at the Center for Demography and Ecology, of which he served as the faculty associate (1967-1970). Later on, Treiman served as the co-director of the Methodology Training Program in the Department of Sociology (1969-1970).
In 1970, Treiman joined Columbia University as an associate professor in the Department of Sociology (1970-1973). While at the institution, he also served as senior research associate (1970-1976) and later the associate director (1971-1976) at the Center for Policy Research.

### University of California, Los Angeles

In 1975, Treiman accepted an associate professor position in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (1975-1977). At the same time, he served as the associate director of the Institute for Social Science Research (1975-1977). After being employed as a visiting scholar at the Universitat zu Koln in Germany (1977) and a senior lecturer at the International Social Science Council in Vienna (1977), Treiman returned to a professor position at UCLA (1977-2004). He also served as chair of the Department of Sociology at UCLA during his first year as a professor (1977-1978).

### Later Appointments

Treiman served as study director at the National Academy of Sciences on the Committee on Occupational Classification and Analysis (1978-1981) and the Committee on Basic Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences (1979-1981). He then accepted the role of director and chair of Social Sciences Computing at UCLA (1982-1985). Following this appointment, Treiman served as visiting scholar in the Department of Sociology at the Australian National University (1986).
Treiman held the position of overseas research fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (1990) and the University of Transkei (1998). Following this, Treiman served as a visiting professorial fellow at the People’s University, Beijing (1998-2000).
In 1998, Treiman co-founded the California Center for Population Research at UCLA (1998–present), where he later served as director (2006-2008).
Treiman then served as visiting professor at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Zurich (1999) and later the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at Stellenbosch University (1999).
In 2004, Treiman was appointed Distinguished Professor of the Department of Sociology at UCLA (2004-2009). Later on, he accepted the position of director of the California Center for Population Research (2006-2008). At the same time, Treiman served as adjunct professor at the Capital Medical University (2007-2009) and professor at the University of Michigan-Peking University Joint Institute (2008).
In 2009, Treiman was appointed Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Department of Sociology at UCLA, a position he still holds. At the same time, he accepted the position of Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA, a role he also still fulfills.
Treiman later served as visiting professor in the Division of the Social Sciences at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2010). Following this, he was a visiting scholar in the Department of Sociology at New York University (2011). He briefly returned to Columbia University as adjunct senior research scholar in the Department of Sociology (2011). Then, he returned to the University of Michigan-Peking University Joint Institute as professor (2012). Later on, he served as visiting research professor at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore (2012).
In 2014, Treiman returned once more as professor at the University of Michigan-Peking University Joint Institute (2014). Following this, he served as Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Shanghai University (2015). Then, he accepted the position of visiting professor in the Department of Sociology at Yale University (2016).

## Research

Donald Treiman is known for his contributions to the field of social stratification, specifically his work in the areas of intergenerational mobility, occupational prestige, occupational socioeconomic status scores, and the impact of migration on child development.

### Standard International Occupational Prestige Scale

Donald Treiman developed the Standard International Occupational Prestige Scale (SIOPS) in the 1970s. Treiman describes the development of the SIOPS in Occupational Prestige in Comparative Perspective (1977). In this book, Treiman introduced the concept that there is a high level of cross-national uniformity among evaluations of occupational prestige. This concept, sometimes referred to as the Treiman Constant, served as the basis for the SIOPS. Treiman used occupational prestige data on 509 occupations from 55 countries to produce prestige scores for each of the individual occupations as well as the unit, minor, and major group categories of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO). Treiman argued that the SIOPS is an accurate predictor of occupational prestige within each individual country and claimed a higher level of accuracy than alternative scales. This perspective challenges the assumption that occupational prestige hierarchies vary by time and place and instead emphasizes a common ground from the cross-national perspective.

### International Socio-Economic Index of occupational status

Expanding upon his work on the SIOPS, Treiman worked with Harry Ganzeboom and Paul Graaf to develop the International Socio-Economic Index (ISEI) of occupational status. The ISEI was designed to capture occupational hierarchies among socio-economic scores rather than measures of prestige or class. Socio-Economic Index (SEI) scales are defined as "weighted sum[s] of the average education and average income of occupational groups." Treiman and his colleagues present occupation as the means through which education is related to income, and therefore SEI as an approximation of a given occupation's position in a hierarchy. Treiman and his colleagues employed data from 73,901 men from 16 countries to construct the ISEI, which they derived from the ISCO. Treiman and colleagues argued that the ISEI performs similarly to alternative scales, including the SIOPS, in explaining occupational hierarchies cross-nationally. The ISEI has been updated and is still in use.

### Intergenerational Mobility

Treiman's contributions to the study of intergenerational mobility focus on cross-national comparisons and trends. Treiman and Ganzeboom created the International Stratification and Mobility File (ISMF), which serves as a comparative database. Treiman and colleagues employed 149 data sets from 35 countries, all of which contained information on connections between a son's current occupation and his father's occupation, which served to capture intergenerational mobility. Through the use of multiple intergenerational mobility tables from each country studied, Treiman and colleagues attempted to reduce the effects of measurement error. At the time of development, the major findings of the ISMF were that a high level of variation existed between the mobility patterns of different countries and that overall unequal mobility chances were declining. With their findings, Treiman and colleagues challenged the concept of common social fluidity, which suggests homogeneity among mobility structures both geographically and temporally. Currently, the ISMF contains over 250 surveys from 56 countries, which includes two million people.

### Internal Migration and Effects on Health

Recently, Treiman has focused on the effects of internal migration on health of both children and adults in China. In 2008, Treiman conducted the Chinese Migration and Health Survey with colleagues William Mason, Shige Song, and Wang Wei. The survey collected educational, familial, residential, and employment data for 3,000 Chinese adults. Treiman and colleagues reported mixed conclusions on the relationship between migration and health, as they found that migrants had higher incomes on average than non-migrants and were more likely to access healthcare providers, but were less likely to be insured. Overall, Treiman and colleagues concluded that the patterns and consequences of internal migration in China were similar to trends observed in other countries.
Following this work, Treiman turned his attention to the impacts of internal migration on the health of Chinese children. With colleagues Yao Lu, Jean Wei-Jun Yeung, and Jingming Liu, Treiman indicated the negative psychological outcomes experienced by children left behind by both parents compared to children who migrated with their parents. Treiman and colleagues designed and utilized The Urbanization and Child Development Study to argue the existence of this disparity. Overall, Treiman and colleagues argue that internal migration patterns which disrupt family structures leave children developmentally vulnerable, therefore harming "the social development of the society."

## Honors and Awards

Treiman was an ASA/NSF/Census Fellow of the US Bureau of Census. He was also a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences. He was the president of the Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility of the International Sociological Association. He was a Taiwan National Science Council Lecturer, as well as a Westermarck Memorial Lecturer at the Finnish Sociological Society. Treiman was an international lecturer of the Department of Sociology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, as well as the NUSS Distinguished Professor 2010 at the National University of Singapore. He is the recipient of the 2012 Robert M. Hauser Distinguished Career Award and an Honored Colleague of the Population Association of America.

## Professional Membership

Treiman is a member of the Sociological Research Association.