SOC2000Office2000 1

#SOCCodes #SocialClass

citekey: SOC2000Office2000
aliases: [" (2000) SOC 2000 - Office for National Statistics"]
title: "SOC 2000 - Office for National Statistics"
authors:
tags: []
year: 2000
publisher: ""
doi:

SOC 2000 - Office for National Statistics

Key takeaways

Reading notes

The standard occupational classification was first publiushed in 1990 to replace both the Classification of Occupations 1980 (CO 80) and the Classification of Occupations and Dictionary of Occupational Titles (CODOT). SOC 90 has been revised and updated to produce SOC 2000.

The two central elements of the classification remain unchanged:

There were two central sources of pressure to revise SOC 90. The first was the need to improve alignment with the International Standard Classification of Occupations and the second, the classification issues revelated by the research to develop the NS-SEC.

The major influences on the nature and shape of the revision were the innovations associated with technological developments and, less directly, the redefinition of work reflecting the educational attainment of those entering the labour market.

The main features of the revision include:

Whilst there was a desire to maintain a level of continuity with SOC 90 the main goal was to bring the classification up-to-date to reflect changes within society. This has resulted in signfiicant changes tot he classification. A number of jobs have moved between major unit groups, though the number of groups within the tiers is similar.

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The major distinction was to bring SOC2000 into a four-digit classification.

SOC 2000 AND THE NEED FOR NS-SEC

SC was first introduced in 1913, but was revised into something like its present form in 1921. SEG was produced in 1951 and substantially revised in 1961. SC is the most widely used in analysis, but has also been subject to some severe criticisms. SEG is less criticised, although it shares the same fundamental problem as SC: what are these SECs measuring?

Given this background, the Census Division of the former Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS, but now Office for National Statistics, ONS) requested the Economic and Social Research Council to undertake a zero-based review of SC and SEG. Were SECs still necessary? If so, might it be that two occupationally-based SECs could be one too many?

The first report on the Review (Rose, 1995) demonstrated a continuing need for government SECs. It also argued for a single, revised, occupationally-based socio-economic classification which united the most important features and advantages of both SEG and SC.

Why do we need an SEC conceived and constructed in this manner? One of the strengths of the approach we have taken in the Review, indeed its underlying principle, is that the NS-SEC offers not necessarily improved statistical associations over the old SECs, but that it lends itself to the possibility of explaining the associations we find. Because we know what the NS-SEC is measuring – employment relations and conditions, i.e. aspects of the work situation and the labour contract – we can construct causal narratives which specify how the NS-SEC links to a range of outcomes via a variety of intervening variables. This is decidedly not the case for the old government SECs, since it is not clear what they measure. They may show statistical associations with dependent variables of interest, but they do not lend themselves to causal explanations.

Changes in the final version of NS-SEC
Managers:

SOC2000 has much more refined unit groups for managerial occupations. This has allowed us to make better distinctions than before between senior managers in Class 1.1 and middle and junior managers in Class 2. With the interim NS-SEC, this distinction could only be made crudely by reference to the size of organisation in which a manager worked. Senior managers are more likely to be in large organisations, junior managers are more likely in small organisations. But obviously there are many junior and especially middle managers in large organisations that will then be placed in Class 1.1 rather than in Class 2.

The final version of the NS-SEC is less reliant on organisation size because, to a large extent, the managerial unit groups of SOC2000 separate senior from middle and junior managerial jobs. Hence, the relevant operational elements of Classes 1.1 and 2 respectively are no longer called ‘managers in large organisations’ and ‘managers in small organisations’, but ‘higher managerial occupations’ and ‘lower managerial occupations’.

As a result of this change, over half of those managers who were originally classified to Class 1.1 in the interim NS-SEC are now in Class 2. That is, we have been able to use the unit groups of SOC2000 to identify some junior and middle managers in large organisations that had originally been placed in Class 1.1. We have then reallocated them to the class they should have been in all along, Class 2. Among the managerial occupations affected are managers of bank, building society and post office branches, transport managers, customer care managers, accounts managers and office managers.

Professionals:

Similar changes have been made to the way employees in professional occupations are distributed between Class 1.2 and Class 2. The interim NS-SEC distinguished ‘professional occupations’ in Class 1.2 from ‘associate professional occupations’ which went to Class 2. The final version of NS-SEC distinguishes ‘higher professional occupations’ (1.2) from ‘lower professional occupations’ (2). Lower professionals are distinguished by the fact that they are subject to more day-to-day control by managers than higher professionals.

As a result of this change, the number of professionals in Class 1.2 has been almost halved. Occupations affected include social workers, schoolteachers, optometrists and production and planning engineers, all now in Class 2.

In the interim version of NS-SEC, Class 1 accounted for 22% of the employed population and Class 2 for 17%. In the final version, Class 1 is 11% and Class 2 is 23.5%. Thus together they now account for almost 35% of the employed population, whereas before they accounted for 39%. Where has the other 4% gone? Most have been allocated to other classes because their jobs are no longer classified as managerial by the SOC (e.g. credit controllers who are now in the intermediate Class 3).

Some, however, have gone to Class 4, ‘small employers and own account workers’. After further research using both LFS and 1991 Census data, some self-employed and small employers previously in Class 2 have been moved to Class 4 because their occupations are neither managerial nor professional (e.g. guest house proprietors). As a consequence, Class 4 is now more homogeneous and includes all self-employed persons and small employers in non-professional occupations.

Alongside this change, we have created new categories of the underlying operational version of the NS-SEC for the self-employed and small employers in professional occupations. As with professional employees, these are divided between the higher and lower professions in Classes 1.2 and 2. Thus a self-employed lawyer would be in Class 1.2, but a self-employed planning engineer would be in Class 2.

Other Changes:

Other occupations that were in Class 2 are now in Class 3, ‘intermediate occupations’. For example, while police sergeants and their equivalents in the fire and prison services remain in Class 2, constables, firefighters and junior prison officers are moved to Class 3. This revision is in line with the rule that higher supervisors are in Class 2 and those they supervise are in Class 3.

Some employee occupations that were initially allocated to Class 3 have been reallocated to Class 6, ‘semi-routine occupations’. Again this reflects the more refined nature of the SOC2000 unit groups. Occupations affected here include telephone operators and call centre telephone salespersons. However, call centre customer services personnel are in Class 3 because they generally have better employment conditions than other call centre workers have.

Finally, some construction trades and all lorry and van drivers have been moved from Class 6 to Class 7, ‘routine occupations’. However, some other employee occupations have moved from Class 6 to Class 5, renamed ‘lower supervisory and technical occupations’ (e.g. landscape gardeners, chemical process workers and railway construction workers); and others have been moved from Class 7 to Class 6 (e.g. childcare assistants).

The manual/non-manual divide:

The new NS-SEC confirms that the manual/non-manual divide is dead in so far as it was meant to reflect a broad division between the ‘middle’ and ‘working’ classes. Some ‘manual’ employee occupations are in the ‘lower middle’ Class 3 (e.g. telephone fitters and specialist electricians). Many ‘non-manual’ employee occupations are in ‘working’ Classes 6 and 7. In Class 6 we have shop assistants, sales assistants, cashiers, junior clerks and some call centre workers. In Class 7, there are window dressers, floral arrangers and store clerks. The male, manual, muscular industrial working class is fast disappearing from the scene. Indeed Class 6 is now largely a female, non-manual, service sector class: the ‘white-collar working class’ of the service economy. In fact, in some ways it is a class apart, neither part of the intermediate class 3, nor entirely similar to the male-dominated remainder of Class 6. This is a changing aspect of the occupational structure that we shall continue to monitor.

RGSC

from here reference Rose and Pevalin 2001

The unit groups of the official occupational classification were allocated to social classes commensurate with the degree of expertise involved in carrying out the associated tasks of occupations within the groups, and the resulting categories were assumed to be homogenous in these terms.

In fact the five basic social classes recognised by the Office fo Population Censuses and Surveys (talking of RGSC) WERE, FROM 1921 to 1971, an ordinal classification of occupations according to their reputed 'standing within the community' (see Leete and Fox 1977 and Szreter 1984 for more). In 1980 this definition was changed so that social class was equated instead with occupational skill. Unfortunately, as Brewer (1986) have observed OPCS did not explain the principles behind this reconceptualisation, so it is not clear how the earlier lifestyle and prestige categories related to the newer ones of occupational skill. However as Prandy (1990) notes, skill has always been seen to have some part in the RGSC. As only about seven per cent of cases were assinged different class codes when the same data were coded according to both 1970 and 1980 procedures and then cross classified, it seems that in rpactice the changes for allocating occupations to classes made little real difference. The process of develioppiung the 1990 Standard Occupational Classification only slightly affected the allocation of occupations to classes, particularly classes IV and V (OPCS 1991)

The RGSC was rightly descripbed by Marsh (1986a) as an intuitive a priori scale. This is not to suggest that it made no assumptions about the structure of society and the nature of social stratitfication. In face the RGSC embodied the now obsolete and discredited conceptual model of the 19th century eugenistics; namely that of society as a hiearchy of inherited natural abilities, these being reflected in the skill level of differetn occupations.

NS-SEC to replace

As Goldthorpe (1981: 11) aargued 'a measure of class will be most apt where the link to the dependent variable is beleived therotetically to be through the individual's position in relations of production; a measure of status... where the link is beleived to be through positions in relations of consumption or lifesture'. This was the persective taken by the review team, hence the choice of a new class measure to replace RGSC and SEG.

SOC2000 vs SOC90 (Mackinnon 2001)

Users found it difficult to classify job titles to SOC90 and the broad nature of certain occupational categories meant that the Employment Service experienced problems matching job seekers with job vacancies. Added to this was teh need to keep the classification up to date by taking account of technological change, which introduced new occupations while making older ones redundant. These reasons prompted the extensive revision of the classification and the publication in June 2000 of SOC2000.

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One problem under SOC90 was that the reported number of managers in teh UK was greater than that of other EU countries. Therefore, major group 1 is now more narrowly defined than under SOC90, and a number of job titles ahve been moved elsewhere. Many job titles have been moved between major groups 5 (craft and related occupations) and 8 (plant and machine operatives). A new minor group was created in major group 5 (skilled trades occupatiuons) to place farmers from major group 1 and skilled farm workers from major group 9.

New unit groups have been intorduced in major group 2 (professional occupations) including ICT Professionals.

Changing consumer demand has led toa growth in the after-sales and customer care sectors, which was not covered at all by SOC90. A new minor group has been added into major group 7 (Sales and customer service occupations)