Opinion of how people get ahead

getahead

Source

General Social Survey https://gss.norc.org

Details

Question 197. Some people say that people get ahead by their own hard work; others say that lucky breaks or help from other people are more important. Which do you think is most important?

Overview

For further details see the official GSS documentation.

Counts by year:

year	iap	don't know	hard work most important	hard work, luck equally important	luck most important	no answer	other	not available in this year	Total
1972	1613	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1613
1973	-	7	973	355	150	2	17	-	1504
1974	-	9	902	423	127	4	19	-	1484
1975	1490	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1490
1976	-	11	931	357	197	3	-	-	1499
1977	-	10	927	430	159	4	-	-	1530
1978	1532	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1532
1980	-	11	927	409	118	3	-	-	1468
1982	-	28	1067	505	253	7	-	-	1860
1983	1599	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1599
1984	-	7	976	264	219	7	-	-	1473
1985	-	22	1003	286	220	3	-	-	1534
1986	1470	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1470
1987	-	14	1180	330	288	7	-	-	1819
1988	504	5	651	204	116	1	-	-	1481
1989	504	8	676	202	143	4	-	-	1537
1990	455	5	598	190	122	2	-	-	1372
1991	524	7	651	203	125	7	-	-	1517
1993	531	3	703	231	134	4	-	-	1606
1994	996	14	1375	386	213	8	-	-	2992
1996	981	20	1333	344	218	8	-	-	2904
1998	950	13	1247	417	195	10	-	-	2832
2000	956	13	1194	451	193	10	-	-	2817
2002	1841	5	578	248	92	1	-	-	2765
2004	1914	4	582	232	79	1	-	-	2812
2006	1771	11	1868	544	314	2	-	-	4510
2008	671	10	886	294	162	-	-	-	2023
2010	763	11	884	265	120	1	-	-	2044
2012	666	4	910	264	128	2	-	-	1974
2014	824	13	1188	340	172	1	-	-	2538
2016	980	7	1330	316	230	4	-	-	2867
2018	774	13	1127	239	193	2	-	-	2348
2021	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	4032	4032
2022	2348	11	709	323	152	1	-	-	3544
2024	2298	19	628	247	114	3	-	-	3309
Total	28955	315	28004	9299	4946	112	36	4032	75699

Values

• 1 hard work most important

• 2 hard work, luck equally important

• 3 luck most important

• 4 other

• NA(d) don't know

• NA(i) iap

• NA(j) I don't have a job

• NA(m) dk, na, iap

• NA(n) no answer

• NA(p) not imputable

• NA(r) refused

• NA(s) skipped on web

• NA(u) uncodeable

• NA(x) not available in this release

• NA(y) not available in this year

• NA(z) see codebook