SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS December, 1969 EDUCATIONAL AND OCCUPATIONAL PLANS OF FARM BOYS IN 1967

Decisions farm boys make upon graduation from plan to take nonfarm occupations. For those planning high school with regard to education and occupation nonfarm careers, 35.83 percent of the total farm boys are important to their future welfare, the optimum indicate they plan to be in higher white-collar (HWC) allocation of human resources, and the rate of eco- occupations (professional and executive); 7.24 percent nomic growth. In order to help these boys make plan to be in lower white-collar (LWC) occupations educational and occupational plans, parents, teachers, (office work, salesmen, or small business); 20.62 per-counselors, and other adults must understand what cent plan to be in higher blue-collar (HBC) occupations factors influence their choices. Several well designed (skilled work); and only 1.31 percent of the boys studies [3, 4, 5, 6] have been conducted in other chose lower blue-collar (LBC) occupations, such as states by sociologists and economists within this laborers (Table 1). general area. This analysis was specifically designed to provide information about the factors which influence Generally speaking, less than one out of eight boys Oklahoma farm boys ' educational and occupational in Oklahoma can expect to take over an economic plans. farming unit. The number of farm boys planning to farm far exceeds the number of economic farmingThe data used in this study were obtained from f f cs the number o economic farmin