Measuring Occupations with SIOM: A Concise Survey Question Measuring Function and Hierarchy

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Abstract

This paper documents the SIOM methodology consisting of: A concise survey question for measuring occupation that defines logical and intuitively clear functional categories in a status hierarchy from high to low; occupational status scores; links between SIOM and the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO); and a comparison with existing best practice. All this provides a broad and secure international context and empirical baseline for our measure. We show that SIOM is functionally almost equivalent to – and often better than – the most widely used continuous measure of status, Ganzeboom and Treiman's excellent International Socio-Economic Index of occupational status (ISEI). SIOM alone usually has a similar but often stronger impact on socio-economic variables than does ISEI alone. Where SIOM has advantages, they seem to stem in good part from its clear representation of hierarchy, that is of differences between top, middle, and bottom. Nonetheless there is clear evidence that both SIOM and ISEI each add something that the other misses. A truly comprehensive measurement of occupation would include both.

Authors

• Jonathan Kelley, University of Nevada-Reno

• M.D.R. Evans, University of Nevada-Reno