1. Occupations, Work, Class and Rank in Past Societies Occupations Historical sources An occupational grid: ISCO and HISCO History of Work Website An example using HISCO From HISCO groups to social classes and ranks Dimensions of social class in earlier work A Historical International Social Class Scheme (HISCLASS) The use of HISCLASS in historical research: an example A Social Ladder: HISCAM Some lines of research

2. Occupations Occupations are the `dna’ of economy and society, past and present Most people have one Many sources Long and strong research tradition in economics, history and sociology Occupations capture both social status and earnings capacity But In the past more information for men than for women Much smaller range of occupations for women than for men  sometimes less suited to describe female socio-economic status it is not a easy standard metric like income in euro’s

3. Historical sources Vital registers of churches (parish books, metric books), 16 th C - present in `catholic’ nations Vital registers of the state, since 1795-1815 in `Napoleontic’ states Censuses and labour counts Population registers in some countries Many other sources including surveys An example of vital registers: marriage acts Many parts of the globe Occupations of groom, bride, fathers and other info on persons e.g. age Connectable to info on characteristics of places Small to very large historical databases (>1000000p) 1650-1970

4. Making an occupational grid I Historical International Social Mobility Analysis (HISMA) International, long time span up to the present, social position, and more Goldthorpe on contemporary studies on social mobility: ”there is invariably a passage in which methodological problems and, in particular, problems of comparability of cross-national data are discussed and acknowledged to be grave. But then, this ritual having been completed, the analysis of the data goes ahead, even with a variety of caveats. The possibility that seems not to be contemplated, however, is that the degree of unreliability in the data is such that analyses should simply not be undertaken; that rather than such analyses being of some value as 'preliminary' studies, which may subsequently be improved upon, they are in fact no more likely to have some approximate validity than they are to give results that point entirely in the wrong direction. (Goldthorpe, 1985: 554).

5. Making an occupational grid II Not to start from scratch To historicise a system with proven comparative credentials: the International Labour Organisation’s International Standard Classification of Occupations. Our biggest innovation is the decision to innovate as little as possible. ISCO has been developed by the ILO to: “provide a systematic basis for presentation of occupational data relating to different countries in order to facilitate international comparisons. A second objective, related to the first, is to provide an international standard classification system which countries might use in developing their national occupational classifications” (ILO, 1969: iii). Many existing national thesauri of occupational titles with national codes linked to ISCO.

6. Making an occupational grid III In ISCO68 1,506 occupational categories. Covering, in principle, all forms of work worldwide Each with5 digit code, Codes 6-xx.xx: primary sector of the economy Codes 6-2x.xx: agricultural and animal husbandry workers. Codes 6-22.xx: field crop and vegetable farm workers Relating to more specific occupational categories General field crop farm worker (6-22.10), vegetable farm worker (6-22.20), wheat farm worker (6-22.30), cotton farm worker (6-22.40), rice farm worker (6- 22.50) and sugar-cane farm worker (6-22.60).

7. HISCO I HISCO is ISCO68 modified through several rounds of consultations over many years with several expert historians from various countries (see book and website) + STATUS + RELATION + PRODUCT (UN CPC)

8. HISCO II % of the most frequent 1,000 titles1accommodated by: CountryISCO68New codes Belgiummen5529 women5924 Britainmen6619 women6018 Canadamen6618 women769 Francemen6421 women5730 Germanymen6523 women6127 Netherlandsmen6228 women7318 Norwaymen6723 women6914 Swedenmen6024 women4622

9. HISCO III: The status scheme OWNERSHIP11Owner, proprietor 12Lease-holder, share-cropper 13Poor ARTISAN CAREER 21Master 22Journeyman 23Apprentice, learner 24Artisan PRINCIPALS AND SUBORDINATES 31Principal 32‘Worker’ 33Subordinate 34Serfs and Slaves TERTIARY EDUCATION 41Student 42Graduate ‘PURE’ STATUS 51Nobility 52Prestige titles

10. HISCO IV: The RELATION scheme FAMILY RELATIONSHIP 11Wife or widow 12Son 13 Daughter 14 Other male relative 15 Other female relative TEMPORAL RELATIONSHIP 21Former or retired 22Future VOLUNTARY OR HONORARY RELATIONSHIP 31Voluntary, honorary INCAPACITATED 41Physical or mental disability HOUSEWORK 51Homeworker

11. History of Work Website I http://historyofwork.iisg.nl Tens of thousands of occupational titles from countries and languages around the world from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. countries and languages linked to short descriptions of work (HISCO-tree) linked to images and iconographic essays a bibliography on the world of work and links links to ISCO68 Soon: computer assisted coding of `your’ occupational titles into HISCO

12. History of Work Website II Occupational titles from: Albania) Belgium Brazil) Canada Denmark Finland) France Germany Great Britain Greece Italy) Netherlands Norway Philippines) Portugal Russia) Spain Sweden Switserland) USA

13. History of Work Website III Languages Albabian) Catalan Danish Dutch English Finnish) French German Greek Italian Norwegian Portugese Russian) Spanish Swedish

14. From HISCO groups to social classes and ranks 1600 HISCO-groups is often too much HISCO-codes are descriptions of work, not classes or ranks Class scheme (HISCLASS) Continuous scale (HISCAM)

15. How to group HISCO-groups into classes? I What is class and what was class in the past? Preference to build on long and strong research traditions Tied to empirical body of knowledge and use of fixed criteria Not based on intuition (ad hoc decisions are permissible and perhaps unavoidable but should not form the basis) One scheme: temporal and regional particulars?

16. How to group HISCO-groups into classes? III Following Bouchard Hisclass is influenced by work of Bouchard (1996): Tous les métiers du monde: Le traitement des données professionnelles en histoire sociale His criteria: (non)manual difficulty of the occupation = skill level Level off responsibility local, regional, or larger company privat or public economic sector Use of Canadian Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) to establish the characteristics of each occupation Result: 25 classes ranging from ‘Dirigeants de grandes entreprises’ to ‘Inactifs’

17. How to group HISCO-groups into classes? II Dimensions of class in use: (non)manual skill supervision economic sector self-employment status income

18. Principles of HISCLASS Following, by and large, Bouchard’s method Dimensions of classes: (non)manual skill supervision economic sector Using American DOT 1965: a detailed description of all at that time existing occupations including ‘scores’ of occupations on many characteristics, based on ten thousands of job standardized job observations on the land and in the cities Quantified in book form

19. Steps to make: Connecting HISCO to DOT From DOT characteristics to class dimensions From class dimensions to classes --------------------------------------------+ From HISCO to HISCLASS in a theoretically simple and transparant way, systematically grounded in empirical body of observations and not based on intuition Testing results on team of expert historians to remove flaws ------------------------------------------------+ HISCLASS

20. HISCLASS: all classes 1Higher managers 2Higher professionals 3Lower managers 4Lower professionals, clerical and sales personnel 5Lower clerical and sales personnel 6Foremen 7Medium-skilled workers 8Farmers and fishermen 9Lower-skilled workers 10Lower-skilled farm workers 11Unskilled workers 12Unskilled farm workers

21. The use of HISCLASS in comparative research (see IRSH 2005/CUP book) Percentage of grooms from rural classes (HISCLASS 8, 10, 12) in 6 regions by period

23. A Social Ladder: I Not starting anew: using and historicizing a long and strong research tradition in history and sociology International comparisons over a long time span Groups that interact frequently are closer together than groups that interact infrequently

24. A Social ladder II: Scaling occupations on a continuous dimension of inequality Modern scales: prestige scales socio-economic status cultural and economic status Problems: few scales apply to the 19th century or ealrier available scales are regional or country specific unclear how these scales are created (difficult to link them to HISCO) little information available to create new scales for the 19th century or earlier (prestige?, average income?)

25. A Social Ladder III HISCAM Solution: estimating social distances from social relationships (compare Weber) Earlier work by: Steward, Prandy and Blackburn CAM(SIS) scale: Prandy, Bottero and Lambert Re-estimation based on historical occupational data coded into HISCO See paper, `Deriving a historical occupational stratification scale’, by Ineke Maas, Paul Lambert, Richard Zijdeman, Ken Prandy and Marco H.D van Leeuwen

26. Examples of HISCO categories with high HISCAM v0.1 scores

27. Examples of HISCO categories with average HISCAM v0.1 scores

28. Examples of HISCO categories with low HISCAM v0.1 scores