Occupational classifications like the International Standard Classification of Occupation 2008 (ISCO-08) or the German Classification of Occupations 2010 (KldB 2010) cluster the variety of different occupations into categories of “similar” occupations. The definitions for each category are usually quite sophisticated, but too long to ask in a survey. Instead, one often relies on short job titles for coding purposes, but job titles are often not precise enough to avoid all ambiguities. To simplify the communication about occupational categories and to increase the data quality from occupational measurement, we propose to use job activity descriptions as a middle ground between long category definitions and short job titles. The job activity descriptions are part of an auxiliary classification that we developed in order to facilitate simultaneous coding into ISCO-08 and KldB 2010.
In this talk, we explain the reasons that led us to develop the new auxiliary classification, discuss guiding principles for development, and share insights we have gained.
