The method of canonical correlation between sets of dummy variables is used to assign weights to the categories of occupational mobility tables, in order to test two assumptions: 1. The socioeconomic distance between occupations determines the correlation across individuals in a mobility table. 2. The relative status of occupations has remained constant over time. The weights which yield the maximum correlation are found to correlate very highly with measures of socioeconomic status, thus validating the first assumption. Since the maximum correlation between fathers' and sons' occupations is obtained by assigning similar weights to both sets, the second assumption is also validated.