ESRC Methods Festival Resources to Analyse Occupations and Social Class: The NS-SEC David Rose Institute for Social and Economic Research University of Essex

Overview (1)NS-SEC categories (2)NS-SEC derivation (3)Constructing the NS-SEC

The NS-SEC 1Higher managerial and professional occupations (1.1 Large employers and higher managerial) (1.2 Higher professional) 2Lower managerial and professional occupations 3Intermediate occupations 4Small employers and own account workers 5Lower supervisory and technical occupations 6Semi-routine occupations 7Routine occupations 8Never worked and long- term unemployed

Categories of the Operational Version of the NS-SEC

Collapsing the NS-SEC (1) Operational categoriesEight (Nine) ClassFive ClassThree Class L1 Employers in large establishments L2 Higher managerial occupations 1.1 Large employers and higher managerial occupations 1.2 Higher professional occupations 1 Managerial and professional occupations 1 Managerial and professional occupations L3 Higher professional occupations L4 Lower professional and higher technical occupations L5 Lower managerial occupations L6 Higher supervisory occupations 2 Lower managerial and professional occupations L7 Intermediate occupations 3 Intermediate occupations L8 Employers in small establishments L9 Own account workers 4 Small employers and own account workers 2 Intermediate occupations Analytic variables 3 Small employers and own account workers

Collapsing the NS-SEC (2) Operational categoriesEight (Nine) ClassFive ClassThree Class L10 Lower supervisory occupations L11 Lower technical occupations 5 Lower supervisory and technical occupations 3 Routine and manual occupations L12 Semi-routine occupations 6 Semi routine occupations L13 Routine occupations 7 Routine occupations L14 Never worked and long-term unemployed 8 Never worked and long-term unemployed Never worked and long-term unemployed Analytic variables 4 Lower supervisory and technical occupations Never worked and long-term unemployed 5 Semi-routine and routine occupations

The Derivation of the NS-SEC Basic SEC Positions EMPLOYERSSELF-EMPLOYEDWORKERSEMPLOYEESEXCLUDED Labour Form of employment regulation ServiceIntermediate Supervisors, lower technical semi-routine, routine Intermediate Professionals managers LargeSmall Never worked Long-term Unemployed Self-employed (1.1) (1.2,2,4) (4) (1.1,1.2,2) (3) (5,6,7) (8)(8)

Validation studies (a)CRITERION VALIDATION Do measures of employment relations discriminate between the categories of the NS-SEC? (b)CONSTRUCT VALIDATION How well does the NS-SEC explain variance in theoretically relevant dependent variables?

Summary NS-SEC is first a conceptual construction (hence NS-SEC is a schema) To operationalise the schema we need an algorithm to a detailed set of occupation- by-employment status units

Constructing the Derivation Matrix (1) Information required on: 1.occupation: coded to SOC2000 OUG; 2.employment status; 3.number of persons in the establishment (0, 1-24, 25+).

Reduced & Simplified versions of NS-SEC Reduced NS-SEC- if no information on establishment size Simplified NS-SEC-if data only on occupation

NS-SEC Household Class EITHER Highest Income Householder ORDominant position in labour market

Advantages of the NS-SEC Conceptually clear and rigorous Simple to create Flexible in use Easier to maintain Better explanatory tool

Key Texts on NS-SEC D. Rose and D. Pevalin (2003) A Researchers Guide to the NS-SEC, Sage D. Rose and D. Pevalin with K. OReilly (2005) The NS-SEC: Origins, development and Use, Palgrave Macmillan ONS (2005) The NS-SEC User Guide, Palgrave Macmillan