Professional prestige

Definition

Prestige is an issue that can be defined in many ways, such as success, social recognition, or career. In the professional context, the position of a given profession is particularly important; it is not only a question of earnings, but of several other factors that formulate the definition of a profession. Among the points that fall within the professional prestige are:

• social recognition
• the usefulness of the profession
• social trust
• place in the hierarchy of professions
• success

The last point — success — can be interpreted differently. This is largely an individual issue, independent solely of position in society, and can affect people at different stages of life, with different financial status.

When thinking about prestigious professions, most of us primarily come to mind professions such as a doctor or a lawyer. No wonder — for many years they have enjoyed a reputation and are considered essential and necessary for the majority of society. People in these positions are usually highly trusted, since it is on them that the success of complex cases, often having a decisive impact on our lives, depends on them; we entrust our health to the doctor and to the lawyer formal matters, requiring expert knowledge and experience.

However, in order not to limit ourselves to the stereotypical listing of classic, prestigious professions, it is worth looking at studies and rankings that present a more complete picture of the perception of various professions by society.

Hierarchy

The latest ranking of the most respected professions, created by SW Research (2024), is as follows:

1. Firefighter
2. Paramedic
3. physician
4. nurse
5. Pharmacist/Pharmacist
6. University Professor
7. Miner
8. Engineer working in the factory
9. Skilled Worker
10. Shoemaker

This ranking was also carried out in the years: 2021, 2022, 2023 and the results of 2024 were compared with the previous ones.

For the fourth time in a row, firefighters maintained their leading position in the ranking, achieving the same level of confidence as the previous year — 84%. Immediately behind them, unchanged for four years, are paramedics with a score of 83%. The third place on the podium changes every two years — in 2021 and 2023 it was taken by nurses, while in even years, including 2024, this place went to doctors with a score of 76%. It is worth emphasizing that the final order was determined by a small percentage difference. A similar two-year rotation cycle begins to take shape for university professors and pharmacists (who appeared in the ranking in 2023). This year, the pharmacist overtook the professor by 1 percentage point.

As you can see, the aforementioned profession of lawyer was not included in the hierarchy above, however, we will find it in other rankings. It is worth noting that we respect professions that rely on our trust: doctors, paramedics, nurses, as well as professions that require hard and dangerous work, such as miners or firefighters.

Another, somewhat older ranking, is the one published by CBOS in 2013. When assessing the prestige of individual professions, respondents used a five-point scale, in which they determined whether a given profession has very high, large, medium, small or very little respect. To simplify the presentation of the results, we focused on three summary categories: large, medium and small prestige. The positions of the competitions in the ranking were determined on the basis of the percentage of ratings indicating their high esteem.

The first 10 places in the hierarchy of prestigious professions in this study are occupied by:

1. Firefighter
2. University Professor
3. Skilled worker e.g. lathe, bricklayer.
4. Miner
5. Engineer working in the factory
6. nurse
7. Maestro
8. Individual farmer on a medium farm
9. Professional officer in the rank of captain
10. Accountant

The above ranking shows that professions related to education, such as a university professor or teacher, as well as military professions at high ranks, such as a professional officer in the rank of captain, were also recognized. The ranking also included the farmer and the worker, which may indicate an appreciation of the usefulness of services and sectors responsible for the production of food and its export.

General criteria of prestige

Prestige criteria are based on generally accepted principles that empower other people to be judged. Among them (H. Domański 2012, p. 177) the following stand out:

• Appropriate position - a higher social position makes it easier to gain prestige, because in such a situation the position rather than the personality traits are more important.
• Factors that make it possible to get a position — these include education, achievements, qualifications, but also talent, knowledge and experience. Access to positions can also be facilitated by money and wealth.
• Personal qualities - this criterion includes 11 categories, including: selflessness, willingness to help, kindness, morality, cooperation, uncompromising, diligence, ethics, attractiveness, intelligence and the ability to cope with different situations.

summary

Although the concept of professional prestige is not unambiguous, social studies bring us closer to understanding it. Thanks to individual rankings and selected literature, we can take a better look at prestige criteria and which professions are or have been perceived as prestigious over the years.