CONVERGENCE THEORIES(Ferber and Lowry 1977; Safilios-Rothchild 1971),
though there is strong evidence of a trend toward
increasing female participation in nonagricultural
employment among advanced industrial societies
(Paydarfar 1967; Wilensky 1968) along with the
existence of dual labor markets stratified by sex, a
pattern found in both communist and capitalist
nations in the 1970s (Cooney 1975; Bibb and Form
1977; Lapidus 1976).
STRATIFICATIONClosely related to the study of industrial organiza-
tion is the question of converging patterns of
stratification and mobility. The attempt to discov-
er common features of the class structure across
advanced industrial societies is a central concern
for social theorists of many stripes. The question
has inspired intense debate among both neo-
Weberian and Marxist sociologists, although the
latter, for obvious ideological reasons, tend to
eschew the language of convergence theory. An
early statement of the class convergence thesis was
made by Lipset and Zetterberg (1959), to the
effect that observed rates of mobility between
social classes tend to be similar from one industrial
society to another. Erikson et al. (1983) conducted
a detailed test of the class mobility convergence
hypothesis in England, France, and Sweden, and
found little support for it. They conclude that the
‘‘process of industrialization is associated with
very variable patterns... of the social division of
labour’’ (p. 339).
A subcategory of comparative stratification
research concerns the evidence of convergence in
occupational prestige. A study published in 1956
by Inkeles and Rossi, based on data from six
industrialized societies, concluded that the pres-
tige hierarchy of occupations was ‘‘relatively in-
variable’’ and tended to support the hypothesis
that modern industrial systems are ‘‘highly coher-
ent... relatively impervious to the influence of
traditional culture patterns’’ (p. 329). Although
the authors did not specifically mention conver-
gence, their conclusions were fully consistent with
the idea of emergent similarities. A subsequent
study by Treiman (1977) extended the compari-
son of occupational prestige to some sixty nations,
ranging from the least developed to the most
developed. The study found that occupational-
prestige rankings were markedly similar across all
societies, raising the question of whether conver-
gence theory or an explanation based on the func-
tional imperatives of social structure of all com-
plex societies, past or present, was most consistent
with the empirical findings. The conclusion was
that both explanations had some merit, since al-
though all complex societies—whether developed,
undeveloped, or developing—showed similar oc-
cupational-prestige rankings, there was also evi-
dence that the more similar societies were in levels
of industrialization, the more similar their pat-
terns of occupational-prestige evaluation ap-
peared to be.DEMOGRAPHIC PATTERNSThe theory of demographic transition provides
one of the most straightforward examples of con-
vergence. The essence of the theory is that fertility
and mortality rates covary over time in a predict-
able and highly uniform manner. Moreover, these
changes are directly linked to broad developmen-
tal patterns, such as the move from a rural, agricul-
turally based economy to an urban-industrial one,
increases in per capita income, and adult literacy
(Berelson 1978). In the first stage of the demo-
graphic transition, both fertility rates and death
rates are high, with population remaining fairly
constant. In the second stage, death rates drop (as
a result of improvements in living conditions and
medical care) while fertility rates remain high, and
population levels increase rapidly. In the third
stage, fertility rates begin to decline, with total size
of the population leveling off or even decreasing.
This simple model works remarkably well in ac-
counting for demographic patterns observed among
all industrialized (and many industrializing) socie-
ties during the post-World War II period. A large
spread in fertility rates among nations at the begin-
ning of the 1950s gave way to declining rates of
fertility ending with a nearly uniform pattern of
zero population growth in the 1970s.The convergent tendencies predicted by the
theory of demographic transition have not gone
unchallenged, however. Freedman (1979), for ex-
ample, suggests that cultural factors mediate the
effects of social structural factors central to transi-
tion theory. Coale (1973) and Teitelbaum (1975)
note that demographic transition theory has not
provided much explanatory or predictive power