# Why are doctors and lawyers still seen at the top of the occupation prestige rankings? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 2, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837 "2013-09-02T22:52:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/61 "2017-04-04T06:49:08Z")
Another thing is that medicine and law are considered, to a certain degree, “secure” professions. Doctors and lawyers can either work for someone or be self-employed; they can live in major cities or in small towns; they don’t need much in terms of equipment or inventory. Whatever happens, wherever you go, people will always need doctors and lawyers. That’s one reason why Jews were always attracted to professions like these, especially medicine. The Tsar has been sending out his Cossacks? Well, they have sick people in Austria-Hungary, too. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/62 "2017-04-04T07:11:49Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > I wonder how the status of civil engineers compared against doctors and lawyers in the 1950s? I think it was always a well respected solid profession. Just like it is today. Then again, I also graduated from Lehigh and my dad graduated from Pitt with an engineering degree and worked for General Electric his entire career. So I may be a bit biased. I think the main difference is that I don’t think there was this “get rich quick” mentality that you see now. It’s almost like there is this constant message that if you aren’t at a Wall Street hedge fund or Silicon Valley tech unicorn, no career is worth having. > [@bump](#): > > How many lawyers do you know? My wife was a > … > > It’s all about what firm you work for, and what you do. If you’re lucky enough to go to a good school in your area, do well in law school, and schmooze correctly when you’re looking for a job, then the world’s your oyster. But if you do mediocre at a good schoo you’ll probably end up making good, solid IT guy type money or slightly better, and if you do poorly at somewhere like Texas Southern, you’re going to be chasing ambulances and making shit money and probably wishing you’d gone into IT. Well, I think hard work plays a big part in that as well. It’s a matter of exclusivity and compensation. The top law firms, investment banks, management consultancies and Silicon Valley tech firms have incredibly high hiring standards and starting comp packages that make Wendell Wagner’s list look like a bunch of hobos. Because these professions are relatively exclusive and arcane to the average person, to a certain extent they have captured the imagination of regular people. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/63 "2017-04-04T09:04:25Z")
Actually I think these days zombie killing is more prestigious. Does anyone else do that thing where you start reading a zombie not realising it’s a zombie and as you read you start formulating a post you want to make on the subject matter of the thread, and then you find it’s actually a zombie and _you’ve already posted precisely what you intended to say?_ Happens to me regularly. At least I’m consistent. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/64 "2017-04-04T14:04:00Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s a matter of exclusivity and compensation. The top law firms, investment banks, management consultancies and Silicon Valley tech firms have incredibly high hiring standards and starting comp packages that make Wendell Wagner’s list look like a bunch of hobos. > > Because these professions are relatively exclusive and arcane to the average person, to a certain extent they have captured the imagination of regular people. It’s just like pro baseball; the vast majority of the players are grinding it out in the minors for chump change, even if Yoenis Cespedes is making 27.5 million a year, there are probably hundreds of guys out there making 1/1000th of that each year. So if you say “Baseball players make a lot of money”, you’re right, for a VERY select set of circumstances- he’s in the majors, and is actually good. Otherwise, on average, it’s patently false, and most baseball players make very little money. That’s the thing- it’s a false perception engendered by seeing the very tip of the iceberg, not the huge mass under the water. The thing about doctors that makes it so attractive is that the salaries are less spread out- even lower-rent doctors like the ones who work at doc-in-the-box places make six figures at a minimum, and it goes up from there. So get an MD, and you’re virtually guaranteed a high paycheck. That isn’t so for many professions, even “high prestige” ones like law or IT. ---
**Author:** ![BrightSunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b3f665/32.png) [@BrightSunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightSunshine)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/65 "2017-04-04T14:22:51Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > In the 19th century, doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and men of the cloth were all accorded a high social standing. But times and attitudes do change and the latter three have faded from public respect. Scientists have faded from public respect? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/66 "2017-04-04T17:00:43Z")
> [@bump](#): > > The thing about doctors that makes it so attractive is that the salaries are less spread out- even lower-rent doctors like the ones who work at doc-in-the-box places make six figures at a minimum, and it goes up from there. So get an MD, and you’re virtually guaranteed a high paycheck. That isn’t so for many professions, even “high prestige” ones like law or IT. I think it’s more about doctors and certain types of lawyers actually helping people. A lot of jobs in IT, accounting, finance, marketing, etc are really just viewed as “corporate jobs”. Great. You make a bit of money as some mid-level functionary in a well-known brand. Did you always want to do that? ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/67 "2017-04-04T18:11:05Z")
For any Dopers who have some degree of competence in working with datasets, try looking at what the General Social Survey has for **prestige** based on occupation over the decades. [http://gss.norc.org/get-the-data](http://gss.norc.org/get-the-data) I’m curious to see what it has (I assume it was doctors #1 and lawyers #2 about forty years ago, and that doctors are still #1, but I wouldn’t be surprised if compugeeks have caught up or [del]trumped[/del] surpassed lawyers these days), but being a dumb fucking lawer, I don’t have the skill set to work through it’s data set, and unfortunately don’t have the time to follow it’s simple instructions today. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/68 "2017-04-04T18:20:22Z")
It might be that doctors and lawyers tend to have much more stable jobs. A lot of IT is project work and contracts. If a company has to lay people off, the IT contractors are usually the first to go. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/69 "2017-04-04T18:33:45Z")
Speculation: Lawyers and doctors are highly-demanding professions, from both an academic and rigor perspective. Both professions are relatively scarce, but have great impact on the lives of the people around them, and both do things which the average person only dimily understands. BUT they’re professions that the a working schlub - or their children - might be able to achive. in short, they’re rather like wizards: Smart, powerful, rare, and _just_ possibly achievable. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/70 "2017-04-04T18:48:16Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > Here’s another factor. Look at the immense barrier to entry. To be a lawyer, you have to finish college, then 3 years of law school and a bar exam. … I think that’s the main factor. Each step along the way puts the lawyer/doctor in an increasingly small percentage of the population in terms of educational attainment and licensure. And in this lawyer’s opinion, the burden on doctors is considerably higher than on lawyers. Doesn’t really have as much to do with any specific individual’s merit or contribution to society. Although there is the general meme (whether you agree or not) that a large part of what doctors and lawyers do is help people in need. There are plenty of lawyers who are scrabbling to earn not terribly high incomes. Folk tend to think of highly paid, highly successful private and corporate attorneys. But there are thousands of attorneys waiting for next month’s rent payment to walk through the door. I remember an occasion several years back, when I was golfing with a friend - an orthodontist - at his private club. I asked him who the members were. He said that despite the traditional expectation that it was mostly doctors and lawyers, there really weren’t that many. He thought it was harder for them to afford it. Instead, the membership was primarily “money” people, and private business owners. Just one anecdote. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/71 "2017-04-05T05:11:32Z")
Because when the stuff hits the fan 90% of the time you’ll need one or both of them. Doctors do a highly skilled job which when done properly extends your life far beyond your natural ability. Our entire society is based on the laws and rules developed by lawyers. Without them the peaceful order of the world goes out the window. “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.” - Abraham Lincoln. ---
**Author:** ![Krav\_Manga](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/krav_manga/32/3153_2.png) [@Krav\_Manga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krav_Manga)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/72 "2017-04-05T07:00:18Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > That’s not unusual. The law degree is a good general purpose degree. It’s a good prep for business, politics, and journalism, just to name a few. Some law schools report that perhaps as many as a quarter of their grads don’t plan on practising law. I really disagree with this sentiment, particularly in my jurisdiction (Australia). It is a position pushed by law school deans trying to sell degrees and has resulted in a huge oversupply of graduates. Law is a good degree to do if you want to be a lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![SOJA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@SOJA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SOJA)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/73 "2017-04-05T07:00:55Z")
Being a lawyer isn’t as prestigious as it once was. Probably hasn’t been in thirty or more years. I know plenty of well-off attorneys who make less than I do. I’d say being a doctor is still prestigious, but the loan repayment can make your life not-so-amazing for the first 10-15 years outside residency. There’s a saturation of attorneys because every Tom, Dick and Harriet decided to become an attorney. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/74 "2017-04-05T08:11:50Z")
I think it’s largely name recognition. They’re jobs that everyone is familiar with and watches TV shows about. We know they’re high-paying\* and require a good college education. “Principal Information Architect”, say, might also be a very high-paid and skilled job, but no-one knows what it is. People will just lump you in as “IT” which puts you in a huge bracket with many low-status roles. - Some upthread have said lawyers often don’t earn much. I think things like this differ a lot by country. I dated a lawyer, and her whole conception of money was very different from mine; e.g. buying a new car on a whim. And she did not consider her salary to be high for her profession. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/75 "2017-04-05T12:22:39Z")
Polls indicate that high pay is not necessarily the deciding factor in which jobs are seen as prestigious. While physicians rank well, they are sometimes beaten out for the top spot by firefighters and scientists. Military officers have also done well in the prestige polls. > **[The American Concept of “Prestige” Has Barely Changed in 37 Years](https://slate.com/business/2014/09/most-prestigious-jobs-in-america-the-short-list-has-barely-changed-in-37-years.html)** > > How does America define prestigious work? A quick glance at the latest poll from Harris suggests it has a lot to do with helping others. Doctors top... And I don’t tend to see lawyers anywhere near the top of the list. I suspect doctoring wouldn’t be seen as that prestigious a job if people could see (for example) the losing battles physicians fight with insurance companies to get tests and procedures covered. ---
**Author:** ![NorthernStar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c77e96/32.png) [@NorthernStar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NorthernStar)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2017, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/76 "2017-04-06T12:03:24Z")
> [@Krav\_Manga](#): > > I really disagree with this sentiment, particularly in my jurisdiction (Australia). > > It is a position pushed by law school deans trying to sell degrees and has resulted in a huge oversupply of graduates. > > Law is a good degree to do if you want to be a lawyer. I suppose it might be a jurisdictional thing and also influenced by the local culture of legal education. If law school programs are either heavily biased towards the practical legal skills, prohibitively expensive or very specialized, it might seem as a waste to go through all that to never use these skills again. If none of these factors apply, I would absolutely have to agree with **Northern Piper**. In my case, I use my legal knowledge to work as a legal translator. My experience so far has been that being able to prove my knowledge of the subject matter tends to impress clients and land better paying jobs, some of which have legal background as an actual prerequisite. In addition, all of us encounter various legal issues in our everyday lives. Even in the absence of extensive practical experience, having a solid grasp of the legal and regulatory environment can come in handy in unexpected situations. It’s actually hard for me to name a career field where legal knowledge is unlikely to ever be of use. Heck, just being an employee _anywhere_ entails all sorts of rights, duties and legal consequences. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2017, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/77 "2017-04-06T13:10:35Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Polls indicate that high pay is not necessarily the deciding factor in which jobs are seen as prestigious. > > While physicians rank well, they are sometimes beaten out for the top spot by firefighters and scientists. Military officers have also done well in the prestige polls. > > [Most prestigious jobs in America: The short list has barely changed in 37 years.](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/09/10/most_prestigious_jobs_in_america_the_short_list_has_barely_changed_in_37.html) > > And I don’t tend to see lawyers anywhere near the top of the list. … Interesting. The actual Harris poll is [here](http://www.theharrispoll.com/politics/Doctors __Military_Officers__ Firefighters__and_Scientists_Seen_as_Among_America_s_Most_Prestigious_Occupations.html) and its longer term trends can be found [here](http://media.theharrispoll.com/documents/Harris-Interactive-Poll-Research-Scientists-Doctors-Teachers-and-Military-Officers-2002-10.pdf). Yes, doctors stay at the top of the list fairly consistently but the consistent drop over the years should also be noted. Great prestige was 61% in 1977, to 50% in 2002, to 45% in 2014. Scientists have dropped more, from 66% in '77 to 30% in 2014. Lawyers went from 36 to 16%. It seems like fewer jobs have great prestige any more. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/78 "2017-04-06T17:00:06Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > “Principal Information Architect”, say, might also be a very high-paid and skilled job, but no-one knows what it is. People will just lump you in as “IT” which puts you in a huge bracket with many low-status roles. True, but that’s also the case for a LOT of other professions as well. I mean there are corporate accounting titles that are pretty well paid, but people lump them in as “accountants” with everyone else in the accounting department, including the people who are doing the AP/AR grunt work and being paid relatively little. I half think it might be the influence of TV/radio; there’s never dramatic series where the IT guy fixes the bug or whatever in time, or where the cost accountant identifies an unnecessary expense and saves the company significant money. It’s always the dramatic lawyer getting justice for his clients, or for society, or it’s heroic doctors saving lives, etc… It’s not even some doctor making his 44th prescription for antihistamines that week, or some lawyer settling out of court on a worker’s comp case. That stuff isn’t sexy, so it doesn’t get the attention, even if that’s the stuff that _real_ doctors and lawyers do. But combine the sort of heroic doctoring and lawyering as seen on TV with depictions of high-end lawyers making crazy money, and people instantly conflate the two. Often the heroic lawyering is either totally unsexy, or not well paid, and the same is probably true for the doctoring as well. ---
**Author:** ![Krav\_Manga](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/krav_manga/32/3153_2.png) [@Krav\_Manga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krav_Manga)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2017, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/79 "2017-04-06T21:57:12Z")
> [@](#): > > In my case, I use my legal knowledge to work as a legal translator. Without wanting to hijack, can you explain what this means a little more? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2017, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/80 "2017-04-06T22:13:38Z")
Interestingly, there are a lot of “prestige” professions which pay very well, but in many cases are also viewed as unsavory rackets peopled by the worlds biggest dickheads. Investment bankers and other finance people, lawyers, politicians, management consultants, political consultants, lobbyists, entertainment agents, even Silicon Valley tech executives. I liked the show House of Lies about my profession (management consulting). And while some of it did ring true, much of it was a lot of BS. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837.md?page=5)