Want Prestige? A Lab Coat Will Help, Though Not As Much As It Once Did

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be real estate brokers/agents. In a Harris Poll that asked respondents to gauge the prestige attached to 22 professions, the real estate jobs were the least likely to be seen carrying “very great prestige” (by 5 percent of those polled) and the most likely to be viewed as having “hardly any prestige at all” (30 percent). The poll’s highest score went to the profession of doctor: 52 percent “very great prestige,” 32 percent “considerable prestige,” 14 percent “some prestige” and 1 percent “hardly any prestige at all.”