odds ratio
odds ratioThe odds ratio is the ratio of two odds. If, for example, there is an experimental process (pe) and a standard process (ps) then the odds ratio is defined as pe (1 − ps)/ps (1 − pe). Unlike most measures of association, 1.0 represents a complete absence of relationship, with deviations in either direction representing an increasing relation. In sociology odds ratios have been most widely used in the study of social mobility, where their insensitivity to changes in the marginals of a mobility table is said by class analysts to have enabled the distinction to be made between relative and absolute rates of mobility. The mathematics and characteristics of the odds ratio are perhaps easiest understood in this substantive context.
For example, in the hypothetical situation shown in Table 8 we have simple mobility tables for two societies, in which men can be mobile from working-class or middle-class origins to...
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