Measuring the task
frequencies of 430 4-digit ISCO
occupational units in 13 countries
Brian Fabo
Analyst, CELSI
Data and Survey Manager, WageIndicator Bratislava
Kea Tijdens
Research coordinator, University of Amsterdam/AIAS
27.11. 2013
Outline
 Explanation of the challenge
 EurOccupations approach:
 Methods
 Results
 Conclusion
 WageIndicator approach
 What is WageIndicator?
 How is the WI survey used
 Time line and data intake so far
The academic challenge
 Academic relevance
 occupation is a key variable in social sciences
 cross-country comparisons based on assumption that
similar occupational titles refer to same work activities
 yet, an empirical basis for this assumption is lacking
 EurOccupations project
 FP6 project for developing an occupations database for
comparative socio-economic research in European Union
(2006–09): BEL, DEU, ESP, FRA, GBR, ITA, NLD, POL
 Research Objective: Are occupations similar regarding
work activities >> Does an Italian plumber engage in the
same activities as a plumber from France, Poland or UK?
EurOccupations methods
 Measuring 10 tasks for 160 occupations
 160 occupations selected from the EurOccupations
database with1,440 titles
 Selection: variation in skill level, gender composition,
number of jobholders, coverage of entire labour market
 Drafting 10 task descriptions (desk research) per occup.
 Raters: experts and job-holders
 Rating task frequency on a 5 point scale (never ..... daily)
 Recruiting experts through networks EurOccupations
teams (2468 experts rated 2950 occupations)
 For some occupations no experts - > recruiting jobholders
through national WageIndicator websites (1247 raters)
Results
 Q1 Are occupations similar?
 51% of occupations lack of agreement or no agreement
 38% weak or moderate agreement
 12% strong agreement
 Q2 Are occ’s similar within countries?
 Spain 80%, Germany 58%, Netherl. 43%, Poland 48%
 Q3 Are occ’s similar across countries?
 Spain strong agreement, Germany weak agreement
 Poland and Netherlands lack of agreement
 Q4 Rate experts and jobholders similar?
 Experts: 35% of occ’s at least moderate agreement
 Jobholders: 50% of occ’s at least moderate agreement
EurOccupations conclusions
 Content
 We assume that occupations are similar across countries,
but to a large extent they are not -> how to explain?
 Methods
 Empirical testing of task descriptions can be undertaken
for a wide range of occupations across Europe,
particularly when recruiting jobholders through Internet
 Empirical testing of skill requirements can be undertaken
for a wide range of occupations across Europe, but needs
skill lists per occupation -> needs further development
 Further research may even allow for an empirical
underpinning of occupational dynamics: which processes
are underlying the occupational formation?
What next: How to collect
data on tasks?
 WageIndicator Web Survey
 WageIndicator survey – Covers 80 countries,
gathers 1000s of cases monthly
 Asks for occupation, using an extended version
of the EurOccupations database
(all occ’s coded according to ISCO08)
 In addition to wage questions about working
conditions, socio-economic characteristics
 Tasks lists were included in the web survey,
these show up depending on ticked occupation,
asking to tick frequency on a 5-pt scale
Measurement of task frequency
 Tasks lists in the Web Survey
 Tasks taken from ISCO-08 description of tasks
for all 4-digit occupational units (in English)
 Tasks lists for 427 of 433 units were prepared
 For 6 so-called ‘not-elsewhere-classified
occupations’ no descriptions were included
 In total 3237 tasks (including few duplicates)
on average 7.58 tasks per occupation
 Tasks were translated into 7 languages for 13
countries
Time line
 November 2013: data collection started in:
 Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil,
Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Netherlands,
Russia, South Africa, Spain, UK
 April-May 2014: first analysis
Data Intake
 Up to January 2014 (included) the data
intake is as follows:
Argentina
Australia
Belgium
Brazil
Belarus
Indonesia
328
22
286
623
764
591
Kazakhstan
Mexico
Netherlands
Russia
South Africa
Spain
UK
604
121
2224
331
238
120
75
Thanks for attention
Brian.Fabo@celsi.sk
k.g.tijdens@uva.nl