Yes, asking about people's occupation is an icebreaker in social situations. However, they then use that information to judge your standing in society. Americans strongly define themselves and others by their work. (That good old Puritan work ethic!) If you don't work or aren't doing well at your work, then you are judged to be worthless. Americans forget that people are much more than their jobs. They can't think of people outside the context of work. They need to know your occupation in order to know how to think of you and how to treat you.

Think that's a lot of hoo-ey? Suppose you meet someone of indeterminate gender. How would you respond to that person? Would you treat them differently if you knew whether they were female or male? Probably. We have different attitudes and standards for men and women, for people of different age groups, for different racial ethnicities, etc. Occupation is no different. If occupation didn't matter, then it would not be such a huge factor in determining where you fit in the socio-economic strata.

People want to label you and put you in a box. That's not necessarily a positive or negative. It's really a time-saver. Way back when our ancestors were living in caves (or whatever), they had to be able to make snap judgments about situations, including people, in order to survive. Today, we generally don't need to rely on making snap judgments correctly in order to stay alive. However, evolution has not caught up with that yet.

Back to OP's question, I would say something that bypasses the whole work thing. Someone suggested earlier to say that you're between jobs. Certainly in this economy people don't judge those between jobs nearly as harshly as they used to. Then I would say that in the meantime I'm taking advantage of the time off to pursue other things. Then people get jealous of me for having the luxury of extra time.