Austral. 3. Statist., 20 (2). 1978, 136-142

NOTES ON THE AUSTRALIAN OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION AS A SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

TO 0 L

PATRICK MCDONNELL, F. LANCASTER JONES AND PAUL DUNCAN-JONES Australian National University

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Classification and Classified List of Occupations (abbreviated here as CCLO) (Australia, 1971) is the most detailed arrangement of occupational titles specifically de- signed for Australian conditions that is available. It is thus an impor- tant research tool not only for those using results from the ABS, but also for those conducting original research which aims at comparability with official statistics. A research tool such as the CCLO, which has clearly had great effort expended in its development and maintenance, warrants wide discussion among it users, current and potential. Such discussion can only add to the long-run usefulness of the CCLO and we advance the following comments in that spirit.

As part of data preparation of the Australian National University 1973 Social Mobility in Australia Project (Broom, er al., 1977) 51,832 occupational descriptions were coded to the CCLO by two coders working independently (i.e. the second coder did not know which code the first had chosen). Some 11,010 of the codings turned out to be discrepant and were inspected once again by coding supervisors. Senior research staff maintained close day-to-day contact with this work. Thus, our comments on the CCLO are based on using it over 114,000 times.

Even though we extensively briefed interviewers on the need to collect detailed job information, we encountered numerous problems in applying the CCLO to descriptions of occupations secured in our survey. While some of these were due to lack of extensive experience with the classification, the major sources of difficulty are inherent in the many cross-cutting principles of classification on which the CCLO is based. Some of the principles which give rise to at least a few categories are:

type of activity performed professional qualifications

Manuscript received September 24, 1976; final revision June 30, 1977. ZRevised version of a paper prepared for the annual meeting of the Sociological Association of Australia and New Zealand, August, 1976.

NOTES ON THE AUSTRALIAN OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION 137

level in a hierarchy industry owning own business employing others type of material worked apprenticeship, trainee or supervisory status type of employing institution (e-g. University, College of Ad- vanced Education, government, private)

Clearly, not all of these principles can carry equal weight through- out the classification; nor are they related one to another by any principle of relative importance. It is in knowing and remembering which apply to specific jobs that the CCLO is difficult to use and some-times ambiguous. The remainder of this paper focusses on these cross-cutting principles. To a user it seems that the point where some bases of classification are called into play is in large measure empirical, for example, where a category is large enough in size to warrant sub-division or when an agency of government requires information on an occupation not formerly distinguished. Such practices, which are often in response to user requests, are bound to introduce ad hoc elements into the system and distort any theoretical basis to the classification.

Type of activity performed. This dimension is, or should be, the major basis for any occupational classification (see US Department of Labor, 1965: XIII-XX; Hodge and Siegel, 1966: 176; ILO, 1969: 3). On the whole, type of activity performed is the major classifying principle of the CCLO, although it depends rather heavily on well- recognized titles for distinguishing types of work.

The importance of type of activity can be seen most clearly in various instructions in the classification, for example, those dealing with categories titled ‘employers, workers on own account, status 0, direc- tors, managers, N.E.C.’ One instruction relating to such categories is: ‘However, if a person states his occupation as a profession or trade even though he exercises mana,gerial or administrative functions he is to be coded to his profession or trade’ (Australia, 1971: 52).

This instruction illustrates the fact that many jobs involve a variety of activities; the main activity may sometimes be difficult to establish. Indeed, every worker-job combinationis unique. Some abstraction and summarization of activities performed is needed before any categoriza- tion can be made. Discussion about the adequacy of occupational classifications often focusses exclusively on the hetrogeneity of categories (for instance, Hodge and Siegel, 1966).

Professional qualifications. This classifying principle needs to be distinguished from that based on trade or industrial qualifications

138 PATRICK MCDONNELL. F. LANCASTER JONES AND PAUL DUNCAN-JONES

because the test of professional qualifications is more consistently applied in the CCLO than the test of trade qualifications, which is used rather arbitrarily.

Most categories in Major Group 0 (Professional, Technical, and Related Workers) depend for adequate classification on information about professional status or qualifications. Categories which do not are mostly either professions with legal requirements governing entry (e.g. Medical Practitioners), or categories of technical workers, which are residual groups for persons who give a professional job title but have no qualifications. For example, a person who said he was an architect but had no professional qualifikations would be coded as a technician and not as a professional.

Trade or industrial qualifications. These play a very small part in the CCLO, but are worthy of note because of the contrast with professional qualifications. Anyone working as a bricklayer is coded as a bricklayer, regardless of qualifications.

Apprenticeship, trainee or supervisory status. This classificatory principle links to those discussed above and below, but it is applied in highly arbitrary fashion. Probationary and trainee nurses are disting- uished’ from uncertificated and certificated nurses, and building and construction foremen are distinguished from other building workers. In the latter case, however, it is only if they are not elsewhere classified. A foreman bricklayer is classified as a bricklayer, but a foreman in general construction work’is classified as a foreman.

Level in a hierarchy. This principle is related in some ways to the previous principles, but covers a variety of other distinctions as well. Again, the principle is not universally applied. Assistant accountants, tradesmen’s assistants, metal, electrical and building trademen’s assis- tants (not elsewhere classified) are distinguished in one way or another, but assistant pharmacists, draftsmen, librarians, carpet layers, and many others are not.

Assistant is only one rung of a hierarchy that appears in the CCLO. Teachers, for instance, are divided into twenty separate categories. One of the bases (but only one) for these distinctions is executive teachers versus others. Most of Major Group 1, ‘administra- tive, executive and managerial workers’ are differentiated by hierarchi- cal status. Categories for agricultural work embody in large measure two parallel sets of categories, one for farmers and one for farm workers. Because the CCLO is so inconsistent in its treatment of differences in hierarchy, or responsibility, researchers may need to create a trailer code specifically to record this dimension, as the ANU survey did.

NOTES ON THE AUSTRALIAN OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION 139

Industry. This is the second most important classificatory prin- ciple used in the CCLO. Beginning from Major Group 4, the classifi- cation is increasingly dominated by industrial distinctions. But even in earlier Major Groups industrial considerations are important in clas- sifying managers, teachers, buyers, and others. Indeed, farming and mining occupations form separate Major Groups. In some respects the use of industrial distinctions is justified because the nature of the work done by, for example, labourers may well differ by industries so that specification by industry is tantamount to a specification by type of activity. But there are two major problems facing non-governmental researchers in applying the industrial distinctions of the ABS. One relates to confidential information and the other to ambiguity across levels of the classification.

Although censuses and surveys conducted by the ABS do usually include an industry question, in a majority of cases ABS coders are not dependent on that information. The ABS also seeks the name and address of the respondent’s employer. Between two-thirds and three- quarters of. all industrial classifications in the 1971 census were made by looking up employers’ names in an index carrying for each employer an industry code from the four digit Australian Standard Industrial Classification code. Only a minority of industry codes were assigned directly from the information available on the census forms. We were not aware of this innovation until after we had begun coding occupa- tion and industry. In any event, the index used by the ABS is not available to the public or to academic research workers. Having asked and coded as many industry as occupation questions, we now ap- preciate why the A B S depends on a company-by-company index to industry. Apparently, neither respondents nor interviewers can reliably provide or report on the industry of employers. Much of our industry coding turned out to be a best guess based on the occupation, and we decided to code our industry information to only the minor group (two digit) level of ASIC. Since the CCLO was designed to code occupa- tions after industry, we sometimes found ourselves in a difficult in- terpretive situation.

The CCLO is at points ambiguous about the importance of industry across levels of the occupational classification. A conspicuous example is Major Group 6, ‘workers in transport and communication’. This group identifies a class of occupations based primarily on industry rather than type of work performed. However, this group includes a category ‘telephonists, phonogram operators’ and within it the title ‘telephonist’. Should all telephonists be classified here or only those working in transport and communication? For example, should some- one who is described as a telephonist in a bank be classified as a clerk, and only someone working as a telephonist in a motor transport firm or some related industry be classified to this code? Since the major

140 PATRICK MCDONNELL, F. LANCASTER JONES AND PAUL DUNCAN-JONES

groups of the classification are implicitly occupational and because the spiral-bound index does not specify industry, it is clear enough that all telephonists are meant to be coded to this category. But the point is that industry is crucial for distinguishing manager and labourer categories, which are coded to a single category and then distinguished by computer on the basis of the industry code. To the extent that major groups on the classification rely on industry (e.g. Group 3, Sales; Group 4, Farmers, etc; and Group 6, Workers in Transport and communication), the structure of the classification itself should guide the user in classifying jobs where some ambiguity is involved. In such cases the relative ordering of job families should provide additional guidance to the information supplied by the index.

Other classifying principles. To code a ‘clerk’, information is needed to distinguish government from non-government employers. ‘Teachers’ are distinguished by whether they teach at universities, CAEs, technical colleges, schools, and in the last case by whether the schools contain primary as well as secondary grades. A person running a small grocery store is a manager (in Major Group 1) if he employs someone else, but a proprietor otherwise (in Major Group 3). ‘Type of material’ presumably dictates the classification of ‘steel erector’ and ‘steel worker’ with mechanics and machinists rather than with building and construction workers. Similarly, ‘type of product’ is used to classify farmers as a separate Major Group. But why the category ‘stone cutters and carvers’ is included in the minor group ‘paper products, rubber, plastic and production process workers’ between ‘photographic printers and developers’ and ‘paper product makers’ is a puzzle we have yet to decipher! Of course, we do not use minor or major groups in our research but the way they appear in the structure of the classification should, in principle, guide coders faced with doubtful or difficult cases. More-over, if one is striving for comparability with official statistics, it is crucial to understand the guiding principles of the classifications, as well as its methods of classification. Even the largest coding frames are never fully comprehensive.

Applying The Australian Classification

We have commented at length on the cross-cutting classificatory principles used in the CCLO, not because we believe it is uniquely awkward or inconsistent, but because it is important to understand the nature of the code to gather and encode occupational information into its structure or to interpret statistics based on it. The CCLO is inherently difficult to use because it utilises different principles to differentiate job categories, and those principles are not clearly ar- ranged in any order of priority. We have attempted to illustrate not

NOTES ON THE AUSTRALIAN OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION 14 1

only the variety of factors involved but the complications in deciding which ones will be appropriate in a particular case.

The ABS routinely gathers less information (especially in the census) on occupation than we did in our survey, so that we infer that ABS coders face as much difficulty in coding jobs as we did. Admit- tedly the ABS in its survey has the advantage of using interviewers whose performance they can monitor over time, but for many academic researchers a major survey is a relatively infrequent experi- ence. Moreover, a social scientist faces greater problems because of the longer time-span his research typically involves (e.g. asking about first job, father’s job and so on).

Occupational classifications such as the CCLO are developed to describe a current job market. But many social researchers need to apply them retrospectively. The ANU 1973 mobility survey, for in- stance, asked about jobs held as long ago as 1917 and in as many countries as provided immigrants to Australia. How practicable is it to try to apply the differentiation implied by a category such as ‘teachers with tertiary qualification, secondary schools, primary and secondary schools, industry codes 8233 and 8234’ to the 1920s in Yugoslavia? Even if the interview was lengthened to allow for adequate probing, it is unlikely that respondents would be able to give adequate informa- tion about, for instance, their fathers’ jobs when the respondent was 14 years old. Moreover, for the reasons mentioned above, we could’not even code to the four-digit level of the industry code for current jobs in Australia. So some slippage is inevitable. It is of course always possible to sacrifice detail by aggregating census categories which cannot be effectively distinguished from the information available.

The Australian CCLO was developed primarily for use with the census There is no Australian equivalent of the U S . DOT ( U S Department of Labor, 1965) or the Great Britain CODOT (1972). While in interview situations employment counsellors immediately seek as much supplementary information as necessary to match a person’s job skills with a job vacancy, census coders usually rely on a two-or-three-word description written on a census form. In some ways, a short title is easier to code than a fuller description. A longer description may provide nuances which bring into play a larger number of classificatory principles. Also, it becomes harder to distinguish the main activities and duties from the less important ones in an extensive, yet fixed description.

Applying an occupational classification such as the CCLO in social science research requires an open and flexible approach to the code. Essentially the problem is to make information for which the classifica- tion was not designed comparable to information for which it was designed. To compare teachers in the 1920s and those in the 1970s the notion of ‘tertiary qualification’ must be interpreted with reference to

142 PATRICK MCDONNELL, F. LANCASTER JONES AND PAUL DUNCAN-JONES

the appropriate time period. Moreover, the occupational questions asked must be framed so that they generate information maximally suited for coding according to the principles behind the structure of the occupational classification.

Conclusion

Our discussion has focussed on the multiple cross-cutting principles of classification embodied in the CCLO. We have briefly touched on the problems of applying a tool designed primarily for current activities to social research which covers a longer time span. Researchers should be thoroughly grounded in the principles underlying the CCLO [or any classification) before going into the field so that they can design their instruments to secure details important for using the CCLO. They can also consider expanding or contracting various sections of the classifica- tion to suit their particular needs.

Beyond this, the training of field and coding staff is the crucial link between .information and its usefulness. Both interviewers and coders must know about the general principles and minor quirks of the classification. We hope that our discussion has provided useful infor- mation to those contemplating occupational research, since it obviously is important to be able to link with the major supplier of occupational statistics for Australia.

References

Australia, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics (197 1). Classification and Classified List of Occupations. Commonwealth Government Printing Office, Can- berra.

Broom, L., Duncan-Jones, P., Jones, F. L. and McDonnell, ,P. (1977). Inuestigating Social Mobility. Departmental Monograph No. 1, Sociology, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra.

Great Britain, Department of Employment (1972). Classification of Occupations and Directory of Occupational Titles. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London.

Hodge, R. W. and Siegel, P. M. (1966). “The Classification of occupations: some problems of sociological interpretation.” Roc. Arner. Statist. Assoc., Social Statistics Section, 176-192.

International Labour Office (1969). International Standard Classification of Occupations. International Labor Office, Geneva.

United States Department of Labor (1965). Dictionary of Occupational ?irks, Volume 1. United States Government Printing Office, Washington.