Occupations with higher proportions of women are often thought to be less difficult jobs. The importance of specific socioeconomic factors, e.g., gender, race, age, income, and prestige, is assessed through judgment of the ability, luck, effort, and task difficulty necessary for each occupation. To examine conceptions of various occupations within the framework of attribution theory, 63 undergraduates completed a questionnaire which requested judgments of 12 different occupations. Respondents rated each occupation according to the ability, effort, and, luck judged necessary for a successful career, and the difficulty of each occupation; the percentage of women in each occupation was also estimated. A repeated measures analysis of variance was used to compare the fit provided by five possible models, each including a main effect for one of the independent variables: gender, race, age, income level, or occupational prestige. Results reflected a basic tendency to associate higher socioeconomic status with more positive factors--in this case, greater ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty. Differences based on greater proportions of women paralleled those for occupations with lower average incomes, higher proportions of non-whites, and lower prestige ratings. Occupations with the highest proportion of whites and highest incomes were judged to have the highest percentage of women. However, the 1970 U.S. Census indicated a higher proportion of women in occupations with lower proportions of whites and lower incomes. (Author/JAC)