2011, Article / Letter to editor (vol. 86, (2011), pp. 372-394)In this study we include personal war experiences in Duncan's path model of sta-tus attainment to answer the following research question: To what extent can personal war experiences explain the occupational status of Dutch people who experienced World War II? We expect that personal war experiences have a detri-mental effect on the human capital formation, which in turn leads to a lower edu-cational level and a lower occupational status. To test our hypotheses, we use uni-que individual-level data from the 'Onderzoek naar Doorsnee Nederlanders in de oorlog', which was conducted from 2005 to 2010 (N = 346). The results of our path analysis show that people who were forced to work in Germany or the Netherlands during the war obtained a lower educational level and subsequently a lower occu-pational status. Physical destruction of one's house also has a negative effect on occupational status through education. In addition, we found some direct effects of personal war experiences on the occupational status.
