The Euroccupations database and its underlying principles Kea Tijdens, AIAS EUROSTAT Workshop on data collection on occupations, 28-10-08, Luxembourg University of Amsterdam Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies

Problems associated with measuring occupations Open-ended survey questions Respondents tend to report their job title, not their occupation -> coding -> Aggregation variation (clerk versus PTS programmer grade 3) Coding Automatic coding tools, using search strings and coding indexes -> available for all EU member states?? Post-coding -> costly International comparability Problematic, particularly for countries with their own classification Most datasets 2 digit ISCO Part of the solution Web-surveys can use search trees

Survey modes Survey mode Open-ended questions Closed questions, choice set Paper yes yes, max 50 Telephone yes, max 5 Face-to-face Web-based search tree yes, max 1,000s Coding index high-quality needed no index needed Aggregation aggregation variation X% too aggregate aggregation bias if choice-set is limited Missing data X% unidentifiable answers none

Projects WageIndicator websites EurOccupations WageIndicator websites provide free information about wages in a wide range of occupations, controlled for human capital variables All web-sites post a volunteer, continuous web-survey The web-survey is in the national language(s) The topics relate to work and wages The web-survey employs the EurOccupations search tree + a text box for additional information about the occupation In 2007 > 10 million visitors and > 160,000 completed surveys End 2004 in 8 EU member states, early 2009 in almost 50 countries EurOccupations The WageIndicator occupations database had > 6,000 occupational titles for some ten countries, many titles for one country only FP6-project EurOccupations (2006-09) aims to develop one database of occupational titles for use in multi-country web-surveys The database holds approx. 1,800 occupational titles 150 occupations tested if they are similar across 8 member states

Principles EurOcc database - 1 One list of occupations for all countries (We assume that occupational structures converge due to globalisation of the economy, e.g. machinery for manufacturing production is a worldwide market, thus the occupations will be similar across countries) Fit with ISCO and SOC classifications (USA) Occupational titles Suitable for self-identification -> close to job titles -> more detail than the 447 occupations at ISCO 4-digit Offering a large choice of occupation titles …. but coding indexes are much too detailed No synonyms -> confusing for respondents 1800 occupational titles Aiming for full measurement of the labour market

Principles EurOcc database - 2 Labels Source list with all occupational titles in English Translations Step 1: Translations by professional translators Step 2: All translated occupational titles are checked by national labour market experts Step 3: Labour market experts propose country-specific occupation titles Feminine and masculine job titles In a few countries, both forms are used 10 digit codes 4-digit ISCO 2008 + 2 follow-up digits for occupation titles within an ISCO code + 3 country digits for country-specific occupation titles + 2 follow-up digits for country-specific occupational titles

The EurOcc search tree One search tree Three-tier search tree Similar for all countries Three-tier search tree Tier 1: Capturing major thematic occupational groups Tier 2: Capturing detailed thematic occupational groups Tier 3: Listing occupational titles from database If needed, a title is placed in more than one tier 2 Principles of the search tree The shortest/easiest routes for large & unskilled occupations Small occupations not fitting 1st tier are identifiable at 2nd tier Optimization of average reading time and length of the list Alphabetical sorting eases the respondent’s choice

Empirical testing Measuring similarity across countries EurOccupations: Empirical testing for 150 occupations in 7 countries Each occupation has approx 10 tasks Surveying experts + workers about the frequency of tasks -> frequency ratings per task per occupation per country Measuring required skill levels ISCO codes indicate a required skill level, but not tested empirically (unthinkable for a worldwide classification) Surveying experts + workers about the required skill levels WageIndicator web-survey: workers indicate actual skill level If the results point to variation in required skill level across countries, the database will provide a table per country

Methodology Stepwise building the database ISCO 2008 draft3 list of occupations Specific occupations have been added Include occupational titles from 4-digit USA-DOT classification Include occupations form the detailed ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF OCCUPATIONAL TITLES for ISCO88(COM) that were assumed to be large occupations Include the suggestions from translations + checks Review text-boxes of WageIndicator survey, with a view on new occupations Review occupational titles in Taxonomy_db project Review O*net

Database decisions Professionals vs employees Unskilled work No different occupational titles for self-employed versus employees in the same occupation No different occupational titles for firm-owners versus firm-managerial supervisors in the same occupation Handicraft workers are distinct from machine-operators Unskilled work Broad groups of occupational titles Industry-specific titles No data-collection about respondent’s industry assumed -> not process operator, but dairy-products process operator

Occupational hierarchies Five layer occupation hierarchy Manager Department manager First line supervisor Occupation Occupation helper (Most occupations have 1-3 layers) No senior and junior levels No separate occupational titles Assistants Extremely vague concept Only when obviously the assistant will never become the occupation the assistant is assisting (no part of a job ladder)

Breakdown large occupations Cashier Fall apart into check-out operator, ticket clerks and ‘other cashiers’ Teachers Break down by field of teaching for secondary education Nurses Break down by field of nursing Sales agents Break down by field of goods sold Work planner Break down by field of industries

Thank you for your attention Download The database (excel file) is freely available from the EurOccupations website Websites www.wageindicator.org www.euroccupations.org E-mail k.g.tijdens@uva.nl