A 10-year longitudinal survey was conducted to study the influence on socioeconomic career achievements of such factors as father's occupation, number of siblings, farm or rural residence, and religious and ethnic differences. Information on 715 white married males who were residents of seven of the largest metropolitan areas and who participated in the 1957 Princeton Fertility Study was used for the study. A model of causal relationships was adduced by using a path analytic framework. The findings confirmed that a man's social origins influenced his occupational career in an indirect manner through the years of schooling which a family's social and economic resources could provide. Jews of all ethnic backgrounds, and Italian- and Mexican-American Catholics, respectively, had the highest and lowest socioeconomic achievements. Education was found to be the key variable which intervened between social and religio-ethnic backgrounds and the occupational and economic achievement of the men in the study. (BC)