The effects of both vertical and nonvertical dimensions of fathers' work on family relations and vocational socialization are explored through a multivariate analysis of data collected from several hundred male student participants enrolled in a Michigan College from 1962-1967. Social class and occupationally-related differences in family characteristics are the subject of the first part of the analysis; differences by occupation, in the impacts of family relationships on the vocational socialization process constitute the second focus of the paper. Findings suggest that there are occupationally-related variations in the character of father-son relations and in the vocational socialization process. The results of the second part of the study support the hypothesis concerning the importance of the father's actual work experience for the socialization process. Closeness to father emerges as an important, structurally-related, intervening variable, mediating the transmission of different occupational reward values, depending on the situs, prestige, and functional focus of his work. In more prestigious occupational origin groups, closeness is associated with nonvertical patterns of intergenerational occupational movement. The analysis suggests that the combination of a prestigious paternal role model and a close father-son relationship engenders the most occupationally-differentiated vocational socialization. (Author/AM)