Occupations, Work, Class and Rank in Past Societies• Occupations• Historical sources• An occupational grid: ISCO and HISCO• History of Work Website• An example using HISCO • From HISCO groups to social classes and ranks• Dimensions of social class in earlier work• A Historical International Social Class Scheme

(HISCLASS)• The use of HISCLASS in historical research: an example• A Social Ladder: HISCAM• Some lines of research

Occupations

• Occupations are the `dna’ of economy and society, past and present

• Most people have one• Many sources• Long and strong research tradition in economics, history and

sociology• Occupations capture both social status and earnings capacity•  • But• In the past more information for men than for women• Much smaller range of occupations for women than for men sometimes less suited to describe female socio-economic

status • it is not a easy standard metric like income in euro’s

Historical sources

• Vital registers of churches (parish books, metric books), 16th C - present in `catholic’ nations

• Vital registers of the state, since 1795-1815 in `Napoleontic’ states

• Censuses and labour counts• Population registers in some countries• Many other sources including surveys•  • An example of vital registers: marriage acts• Many parts of the globe• Occupations of groom, bride, fathers and other info on

persons e.g. age• Connectable to info on characteristics of places• Small to very large historical databases (>1000000p)

1650-1970

Making an occupational grid I

• Historical International Social Mobility Analysis (HISMA)• International, long time span up to the present, social

position, and more• Goldthorpe on contemporary studies on social mobility: • ”there is invariably a passage in which methodological

problems and, in particular, problems of comparability of cross-national data are discussed and acknowledged to be grave. But then, this ritual having been completed, the analysis of the data goes ahead, even with a variety of caveats. The possibility that seems not to be contemplated, however, is that the degree of unreliability in the data is such that analyses should simply not be undertaken; that rather than such analyses being of some value as 'preliminary' studies, which may subsequently be improved upon, they are in fact no more likely to have some approximate validity than they are to give results that point entirely in the wrong direction. (Goldthorpe, 1985: 554).

Making an occupational grid II

• Not to start from scratch• To historicise a system with proven comparative credentials:

the International Labour Organisation’s International Standard Classification of Occupations.

• Our biggest innovation is the decision to innovate as little as possible.

• ISCO has been developed by the ILO to: “provide a systematic basis for presentation of occupational data relating to different countries in order to facilitate international comparisons. A second objective, related to the first, is to provide an international standard classification system which countries might use in developing their national occupational classifications” (ILO, 1969: iii).

• Many existing national thesauri of occupational titles with national codes linked to ISCO.

Making an occupational grid III

• In ISCO68 1,506 occupational categories.• Covering, in principle, all forms of work worldwide• Each with5 digit code,

• Codes 6-xx.xx: primary sector of the economy• Codes 6-2x.xx: agricultural and animal husbandry

workers. • Codes 6-22.xx: field crop and vegetable farm workers • Relating to more specific occupational categories• General field crop farm worker (6-22.10), vegetable

farm worker (6-22.20), wheat farm worker (6-22.30), cotton farm worker (6-22.40), rice farm worker (6-22.50) and sugar-cane farm worker (6-22.60).

HISCO I

• HISCO is ISCO68 modified through several rounds of consultations over many years with several expert historians from various countries (see book and website)

• + STATUS + RELATION + PRODUCT (UN CPC)

HISCO II

• % of the most frequent 1,000 titles1accommodated by:

• Country ISCO68 New codes• Belgium men 55 29• women 59 24• Britain men 66 19• women 60 18• Canada men 66 18• women 76 9• France men 64 21• women 57 30• Germany men 65 23• women 61 27• Netherlands men 62 28• women 73 18• Norway men 67 23• women 69 14• Swedenmen 60 24• women 46 22

HISCO III: The status scheme

OWNERSHIP 11 Owner, proprietor• 12 Lease-holder, share-cropper• 13 PoorARTISAN CAREER• 21 Master• 22 Journeyman• 23 Apprentice, learner• 24 ArtisanPRINCIPALS AND SUBORDINATES• 31 Principal• 32 ‘Worker’• 33 Subordinate• 34 Serfs and SlavesTERTIARY EDUCATION• 41 Student• 42 Graduate‘PURE’ STATUS• 51 Nobility• 52 Prestige titles

HISCO IV: The RELATION scheme

FAMILY RELATIONSHIP11 Wife or widow12 Son13      Daughter14      Other male relative15      Other female relative

TEMPORAL RELATIONSHIP21 Former or retired22 Future

VOLUNTARY OR HONORARY RELATIONSHIP31 Voluntary, honorary

INCAPACITATED41 Physical or mental disability

HOUSEWORK• 51 Homeworker

History of Work Website I

•  http://historyofwork.iisg.nl

• Tens of thousands of occupational titles from countries and languages around the world from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.

• linked to short descriptions of work (HISCO-tree)• linked to images and iconographic essays a

bibliography on the world of work and links • links to ISCO68 • Soon: computer assisted coding of `your’

occupational titles into HISCO

History of Work Website II

• Occupational titles from: • Albania)• Belgium• Brazil)• Canada• Denmark • Finland)• France • Germany • Great Britain • Greece • Italy)• Netherlands • Norway • Philippines)• Portugal • Russia)• Spain • Sweden• Switserland)• USA

History of Work Website III

• Languages • Albabian)• Catalan • Danish • Dutch • English • Finnish)• French • German • Greek • Italian• Norwegian • Portugese • Russian)• Spanish • Swedish

From HISCO groups to social classes and ranks

• 1600 HISCO-groups is often too much• HISCO-codes are descriptions of work, not classes or

ranks

• Class scheme (HISCLASS)

• Continuous scale (HISCAM)

How to group HISCO-groups into classes? I

• What is class and what was class in the past?• Preference to build on long and strong

research traditions• Tied to empirical body of knowledge and use of

fixed criteria• Not based on intuition• (ad hoc decisions are permissible and perhaps

unavoidable but should not form the basis)• One scheme: temporal and regional

particulars?

How to group HISCO-groups into classes? III Following Bouchard• Hisclass is influenced by work of Bouchard (1996):

Tous les métiers du monde: Le traitement des données professionnelles en histoire sociale

• His criteria:• (non)manual

• difficulty of the occupation = skill level

• Level off responsibility

• local, regional, or larger company

• privat or public

• economic sector

• Use of Canadian Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) to establish the characteristics of each occupation

• Result: 25 classes ranging from ‘Dirigeants de grandes entreprises’ to ‘Inactifs’

How to group HISCO-groups into classes? II

• Dimensions of class in use:

• (non)manual

• skill

• supervision

• economic sector

• self-employment

• status

• income

Principles of HISCLASS

• Following, by and large, Bouchard’s method• Dimensions of classes:

• (non)manual

• skill

• supervision

• economic sector

• Using American DOT 1965: a detailed description of all at that time existing occupations including ‘scores’ of occupations on many characteristics, based on ten thousands of job standardized job observations on the land and in the cities

• Quantified in book form

Steps to make:

• Connecting HISCO to DOT• From DOT characteristics to class dimensions• From class dimensions to classes• --------------------------------------------+• From HISCO to HISCLASS in a theoretically simple

and transparant way, systematically grounded in empirical body of observations and not based on intuition

• Testing results on team of expert historians to remove flaws

------------------------------------------------+

HISCLASS

HISCLASS: all classes

1 Higher managers 2 Higher professionals3 Lower managers4 Lower professionals, clerical and sales personnel5 Lower clerical and sales personnel6 Foremen7 Medium-skilled workers8 Farmers and fishermen9 Lower-skilled workers10 Lower-skilled farm workers11 Unskilled workers12 Unskilled farm workers

The use of HISCLASS in comparative research(see IRSH 2005/CUP book)

Percentage of grooms from rural classes (HISCLASS 8, 10, 12) in 6 regions by period

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

<1800 1800-1833

1834-1866

1867-1900

>1900

%

Belgium: cities andvillages

Netherlands: Zeeland

Norway: Rendalen

Austria: Innichen

France

Switzerland:Winterthur

 

Percentage of endogamous marriages in 10 regions by period

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

<1800 1800-1833 1834-1866 1867-1900 >1900

%

The Netherlands: Zeeland Norway: Rendalen

Sweden: Scanian parishes France: urban

France: rural France: Basque country

Belgium: urban Belgium: rural

Austria: Innichen Switzerland: Winterthur

A Social Ladder: I

Not starting anew: using and historicizing a long and strong research tradition in history and sociology

International comparisons over a long time span

Groups that interact frequently are closer together than groups that interact infrequently

A Social ladder II: Scaling occupations on a continuous dimension of inequality• Modern scales:

• prestige scales

• socio-economic status

• cultural and economic status

• Problems:• few scales apply to the 19th century or ealrier

• available scales are regional or country specific

• unclear how these scales are created (difficult to link them to

HISCO)

• little information available to create new scales for the 19th

century or earlier (prestige?, average income?)

A Social Ladder III HISCAM

• Solution: estimating social distances from social relationships (compare Weber)

• Earlier work by: Steward, Prandy and Blackburn• CAM(SIS) scale: Prandy, Bottero and Lambert

• Re-estimation based on historical occupational data coded into HISCO

• See paper, `Deriving a historical occupational stratification scale’, by Ineke Maas, Paul Lambert, Richard Zijdeman, Ken Prandy and Marco H.D van Leeuwen

Examples of HISCO categories with high HISCAM v0.1 scores

HISCO HISCAM

v0.1 12110 Lawyer 99,0 13100 University and Higher Education Teachers 99,0 15915 J ournalist 99,0 19200 Sociologists, Anthropologists and Related Scientists 99,0 21300 Sales Managers 99,0 03620 Chemical Engineering Technician (Petroleum) 99,0 03720 Extractive Metallurgy Technician 99,0 44100 Insurance, Real Estate and Securities Salesmen 99,0 06100 Medical Doctor, Specialisation Unknown 99,0 06310 Dentist, General 99,0 08110 Statistician, General 99,0 09010 Economist, General 99,0

Examples of HISCO categories with average HISCAM v0.1 scores

HISCO HISCAM

v0.1 61110 General Farmer 60,9 87110 Pipe Fitter, General 60,9 57000 Hairdresser, Barbers, Beauticians and Related Workers 60,7 59950 Practical Aid (Pharmacy) 60,7 92135 Monotype Keyboard Operator 60,7 94320 Cast Concrete Product Maker 60,7 94960 Candle Maker 60,7 45130 Retail Trade Salesperson 60,4 77200 Sugar Processors and Refiners 60,4 85630 Telephone and Telegraph Mechanic 60,2 85740 Telephone and Telegraph Lineman 60,2 37090 Other Mail Distribution Clerks 60,1 98540 Motor Bus Driver 60,1

Examples of HISCO categories with low HISCAM v0.1 scores

HISCO HISCAM

v0.1 62430 Sheep Farm Worker 33,0 98420 Railway Brakeman (Freight Train) 33,0 99900 Workers NEC 32,5 95530 Stucco Plasterer 32,2 62210 Field Crop Farm Worker 32,1 55220 Charworker 30,6 89200 Potters and Related Clay and Abrasive Formers 29,6 97340 Hoist Operator (Mine) 28,9 97460 Tar-Spreading Machine Operator 28,9 97990 Other Material Handling Equipment Operators 28,9 54020 House Servant 10,6