Status Jobs

Physicians, college presidents and astronauts topped the list of occupations most admired by Americans, according to a new USC/UC Irvine “prestige” survey.

Researchers from both universities surveyed a total of 1,166 American adults who rated the prestige of 740 occupations from doctor to street-corner drug dealer.

“The most highly rated occupations are generally those that require a large amount of education and specialized training and that command large incomes,” said Keiko Nakao, an assistant professor of sociology at USC and one of the study’s authors.

Respectability also seems to be an important factor in judging a job’s prestige, Nakao said.

“This explains why the prestige rankings of prostitutes and street-corner drug dealers are so low, even though their incomes can be relatively high,” he said. “It’s nice to know that, when it comes to prestige, society does not reward crime as an occupation.”

Here are the top- and bottom-ranked occupations. A score of 0 means that all of the respondents rated the occupation at the bottom of a nine-rung prestige ladder, while a score of 100 indicates that all respondents placed the occupation at the top of the ladder.

Most prestigious

Physicians: 86

College presidents: 81

Astronauts: 80

High-level government officials: 76

Lawyers: 75

Physicists: 74

College professors: 74

Computer scientists: 74

Chemical engineers: 73

Airline pilots: 73

Architects: 73

Chemists: 73

Least prestigious

Panhandlers: 11

Fortunetellers: 13

Street-corner drug dealers: 13

Envelope stuffers: 14

Prostitutes: 14

Dishwashers: 17

Shoe shiners: 17

Grocery baggers: 18

Carwash attendants: 19

Migrant workers: 19

Newspaper peddlers: 19

Street sweepers: 19