After a one week hiatus, Demographic Tuesdays is back... with an experiment:
The most standard way to categorize types of work in the United States has 23 major categories. As we have noted repeatedly, the "poll" system used by dKos only allows 15 categories, and this has caused problems with some prior polls.
Therefore, I am going to try to break free of the 15 category limit by breaking this survey into two parts - one poll today and the rest tomorrow.
But it means you/we all gotta come back tomorrow to finish the poll! See below for how we are going to do it...
(And, as always, this poll will work best if it were to be up in the Recommended Diaries" secion for the whole day, allowing all regions of the country a chance to see it both in the morning and evening.)
Here is how it is going to work (no pun intended; yeah right).
"Over the past year, what is your most typical Occupation/Job/Work?"
As usual, instead of making up my own, I decided to go with the Federal Government standard system, used by the Census and also by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is also what other folks -- such as businesses, other pollsters, sociologists, etc. use -- so that their data is comparable to national data.
The 2000 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System was developed in response to a growing need for a universal occupational classification system. Such a classification system allows government agencies and private industry to produce comparable data. Users of occupational data include government program managers, industrial and labor relations practitioners, students considering career training, job seekers, vocational training schools, and employers wishing to set salary scales or locate a new plant. It is used by federal agencies collecting occupational data, providing a means to compare occupational data across agencies. It is designed to cover all occupations in which work is performed for pay or profit, reflecting the current occupational structure in the United States.
The 2000 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system is used by Federal statistical agencies to classify workers into occupational categories for the purpose of collecting, calculating, or disseminating data. All workers are classified into one of over 820 occupations according to their occupational definition. To facilitate classification, occupations are combined to form 23 major groups, 96 minor groups, and 449 broad occupations. Each broad occupation includes detailed occupation(s) requiring similar job duties, skills, education, or experience.
So that is 23 categories instead of 15. Rather than collapse and combine them to get down to 15 categories, and get some group angry at me for combining them in with some other group, I am just going to go split it into two polls, one today and one tomorrow.
Here are the instructions:
- Please review the entire master list of 23 "major group" categories below.
- If you are not sure where your occupation (work, job) fits, you can go here to look up which category your occupation fits into. For example, if I count myself as a "pediatrician" then I am category 29; but if I consider myself an "epidemiologist" then I am in category 19. Interestingly there seems to be no coding for "politicians" or "senators" or "mayors"; however "legislators" are in category 11, and I suppose mayors, governors and presidents are category 11 too (except for Bush who thinks he's a 55).
- If your current occupation is listed in today's poll, then please choose that one today, and then also come back for tomorrow's poll and check "Yesterday's Poll."
- If your occupation is not listed in today's poll, then check "Tomorrow's Poll" and then also come back tomorrow and check your occupational group. The categories not listed today, will be in tommorrow's poll.
- The categories of "Other" for those of you refusing to fit yourself into any of the standard categories will be in tomorrow's poll. So will "unemployed-chronically" So will "student-unpaid." I can also add other categories to tommorrow's poll, if you suggest them in today's comments!
If this works, then today's occupational categories should total up to the about the same number as tommorrow's "Yesterday's Poll" category; and today's category of "Tomorrow's Poll" should add up to tommorrow's polling of categories. Does that make sense? Got it?
Here is the master list:
The 2000 SOC classifies workers at four levels of aggregation: 1) major group; 2) minor group; 3) broad occupation; and 4) detailed occupation. All occupations are clustered into one of the following 23 major groups:
11-0000 Management Occupations
13-0000 Business and Financial Operations Occupations
15-0000 Computer and Mathematical Occupations
17-0000 Architecture and Engineering Occupations
19-0000 Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations
21-0000 Community and Social Services Occupations
23-0000 Legal Occupations
25-0000 Education, Training, and Library Occupations
27-0000 Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations
29-0000 Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations
31-0000 Healthcare Support Occupations
33-0000 Protective Service Occupations
35-0000 Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations
37-0000 Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations
39-0000 Personal Care and Service Occupations
41-0000 Sales and Related Occupations
43-0000 Office and Administrative Support Occupations
45-0000 Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations
47-0000 Construction and Extraction Occupations
49-0000 Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations
51-0000 Production Occupations
53-0000 Transportation and Material Moving Occupations
55-0000 Military Specific Occupations
Within these major groups are 96 minor groups, 449 broad occupations, and 821 detailed occupations. Occupations with similar skills or work activities are grouped at each of the four levels of hierarchy to facilitate comparisons. For example, "Life, Physical and Social Science Occupations" (19-0000) is divided into four minor groups, "Life Scientists" (19-1000), "Physical Scientists" (19-2000), "Social Scientists and Related Workers" (19-3000), and "Life, Physical and Social Science Technicians" (19-4000). Life Scientists contains broad occupations such as "Agriculture and Food Scientists" (19-1010), and "Biological Scientists" (19-1020). The broad occupation Biological Scientists includes detailed occupations such as "Biochemists and Biophysicists" (19-1021), and "Microbiologists" (19-1022).
For more questions see the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) User Guide. For example if you go scroll down to the "Classification and Coding Structure" and click on one of the 23 major group categories, it will send you to the ever more detailed/specialized/specific subgroups within that category.
As a further incentive to come back tomorrow, the fun part of the diary, discussing the national demographics of occupation, will be in tommorrow's diary.
Update 1: It's all about the money
Several folks are asking about such categories as "student" or "retired" or "homemaker" or "mom" or "dad." For this poll, as for the use of the SOC for BLS and Census purposes it is all about the money. How do you make a living, pay the rent, buy food. So those categories in and of themselves don't count (see also #1 below). I will have them in tomorrow's poll.
As for those who comment about being in some specialty that is not listed, remember that the categories listed are the broad categories, and there are all the sub-sub-specialties listed within them.
If you go to the SOC user guide and click on one of the categories, you will see the further brancing tree of sub-categories. There are hierarchical levels in the SOC, so it does get down to pretty detailed level.
Update 2: Is it the content/domain or is it that I am supervisor (or student)?
See #2, #3 & #4 from their FAQ page below
Classification Principles:
In order to ensure that all users of occupational data classify workers the same way, the following classification principles should be followed.
- The Classification covers all occupations in which work is performed for pay or profit, including work performed in family-operated enterprises by family members who are not directly compensated. It excludes occupations unique to volunteers. Each occupation is assigned to only one occupation at the lowest level of the classification.
- Occupations are classified based upon work performed, skills, education, training, and credentials.
- Supervisors of professional and technical workers usually have a background similar to the workers they supervise, and are therefore classified with the workers they supervise. Likewise, team leaders, lead workers and supervisors of production, sales, and service workers who spend at least 20 percent of their time performing work similar to the workers they supervise are classified with the workers they supervise.
- First-line managers and supervisors of production, service, and sales workers who spend more than 80 percent of their time performing supervisory activities are classified separately in the appropriate supervisor category, since their work activities are distinct from those of the workers they supervise. First-line managers are generally found in smaller establishments where they perform both supervisory and management functions, such as accounting, marketing, and personnel work.
- Apprentices and trainees should be classified with the occupations for which they are being trained, while helpers and aides should be classified separately.
- If an occupation is not included as a distinct detailed occupation in the structure, it is classified in the appropriate residual occupation. Residual occupations contain all occupations within a major, minor or broad group that are not classified separately.
- When workers may be classified in more than one occupation, they should be classified in the occupation that requires the highest level of skill. If there is no measurable difference in skill requirements, workers are included in the occupation they spend the most time.
Update 3: Politicians & Prostitutes - the Alphabetical Index of Occupations
Another way to look your occupation up, albeit the hard way, is alphabetically at http://www.census.gov/... where the second menu table is "View Census 2000 Alphabetical Index of Occupations."
For example under "P" they do have:
- Politician 21-1099: "Community and Social Service Workers, All Other: All community and social service specialists not listed separately."
& also:
- Prostitute 39-9099: "Personal Care and Service Workers, All Other: All personal care and service workers not listed separately"
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The usual caveats:
Of course these polls are not "scientific." Since the poll is inherently self selecting and is not a random sample there is always the presumption of selection bias, making the survey results different than truth. These will never be valid random sample. And just size alone does not make it valid since still self selecting and has inherent selection bias. But probably has some validity... though since not a random sample, and don't know enough about total population, sample frame and self selecting factors, cannot even measure how inaccurate it is... Yet probably has some validity... yet not valid and can't even measure how invalid... yet....
Granting all that, there are some indicators suggestive of possible validity in these polls: for example if distriubtion is relatively stable and does not jump around wildly this is not definititive but suggestive (at least that it is not being "freeped". Also, when poll done repeatedly, either same way, or only slightly different way (some advantage to doing slightly differently, if thought out, as test of validity), at different times, lets say different day of week, weekday and weekend, morning vs. night, months or years apart.
Some folks asked why should we do these demographic polls at all, and raised the issue of privacy concerns. As to the why question, the simple answer is "know thyself." Who are we when we spout off and comment? Also, it can be fun. It also helps the discussion of whatever the topic is. And yes, maybe it will be reported by other media or be used to market advertising to the site.
As to the privacy concerns, Kos has certainly made clear his strong views against "outing" the real identities of anybody. I do not know what access the site administrators have to the data or linkages of usernames to poll responses. Myself, I am just a regular user, and have nothing to do with administration or behind the scenes here. I am not doing anything with these polls (though I imagine somebody somewhere might be using them for a political science or sociology thesis). I don't know who has voted or what age goes with whom. I have no special access or use. All I have is the same bar graph and diary that is publicly visible. Also, there are no cross-tabs between any variables (e.g., prior urban-rural with region with religion). It is not like a questionnaire with multiple separate questions per single interviewee. I guess the question is a matter of what the site administrators COULD access and link or identify if they were so inclined, whether they WOULD do so; and what protections are there on system to prevent an outsider from doing so? Clearly if there were a serious break of confidentiality/privacy, the Kos community would react very badly. The simple answer is, if you are that concerned, with this or any other issue, then do not participate; don't vote. This is a voluntary poll, within one of many diaries on DKos, with DKos just among the nearly infinite number of webpages you can browse.
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- Per the instruction above, the first 14 categories (11 to 37) are listed below in today's poll.
- The remaining ones will be in tomorrows poll.
- Please, everybody, come back tomorrow.