Regularly fielded sections of NLSY79 survey instruments have collected information on the occupation of respondents’ current/last job, jobs since last interview, military job, vocational/technical or government training programs, type of job to which they aspired, and, for those unemployed and out of the labor force, the kind of occupation they were seeking or planned to seek. In addition to this respondent-specific information, data on occupations are also available for other family members, including the spouse and parents of the respondent. Finally, the 1980 school survey collected data on the types of vocational/technical training offered within a respondent’s high school.
Verbatim responses to open-ended questions eliciting information on kinds of work or training are entered directly into the survey instrument by the interviewer and subsequently coded by NORC staff using one or more occupational coding schemes. The occupational classification systems listed in Table 4.31.1 have been used to code occupations within the NLSY79 surveys. Background information on the development of the 1980 classification system and the relationship between the 1970 and 1980 coding categories is available in the 1989 Census publication listed in this section’s references.
Table 4.31.1 Occupational Coding Classification Systems: NLSY79
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Survey Instruments: Data on occupations have been collected within various topical sections of the NLSY79 questionnaires: “Current Labor Force Status,” “Regular Schooling,” “Government Training,” “Military,” “Family Background,” etc. The yearly Employer Supplements collect occupational information on the type of job performed for a given employer. The separately administered 1980 School Survey was used to collect information on types of vocational and technical courses offered by those schools surveyed.
Data Files & Documentation: Occupational data for the NLSY79 are found within various areas of interest, e.g., “CPS,” “Job Information,” “Military,” “Misc. xxxx,” “School,” “Training,” “Marriage,” “Family Background.” "Attachment 3: Industry and Occupation Codes" in the Codebook Supplement provides the detailed codes for the Census and DOD classification systems discussed above. The NLSY High School Transcript Survey: Overview and Documentation contains a copy of the school survey that asked about vocational/technical course offerings.
Comparison to Other NLS Cohorts: NLSY79 young adults were asked open-ended questions on the kinds of work or training they had. For both employee and self-employed jobs, NLSY97 respondents’ occupations are coded according to the 1990 three-digit census occupational classification system. Freelance jobs that do not qualify as self-employment are coded according to the type of work performed. For the Mature and Young Women, occupation has been coded using 1960, 1980, and 1990 systems in various survey years. The occupations of Older and Young Men were recorded using the 1960 codes for all years; in the final two Older Men surveys, occupation was doublecoded using the 1980 system. For more information, consult the BLS website at http://www.bls.gov/nls or the appropriate cohort’s User’s Guide.
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User Notes: “Employer” is the unit for which occupations are asked in the NLSY79. Thus changes in occupation are not asked directly but rely on the accuracy of coding across survey years. Users should be careful in making inferences about occupational and/or industry mobility as miscoding is present. When industry codes for the same employer in adjacent interview years are compared (see NLSY79 Work History Data), it has been found that respondents use slightly different words to describe their industry/occupation and coders may interpret the same words in different ways in different years. When one code is missing, occupational descriptions are used in creating industry codes and vice versa. Therefore, workers who change occupations, even though they stay in the same firm, may tend to generate changes in industry codes. The 1979 occupation and industry codes for Job #1 (the CPS job) are only blank placeholders, due to the structure of the job history and “CPS” sections in the initial survey year (1979). The information is contained in the “CPS” section, but these variables were used as placeholders in anticipation of the future structure of the Employer Supplement. |
References
Duncan, O.D. "A Socioeconomic Index for All Occupations." In Occupations and Social Status, A.J. Reiss, Jr. et al. New York: Free Press, 1961.
U.S. Census Bureau. 1960 Census of Population Alphabetical Index of Occupations and Industries (Revised Edition). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960.
U.S. Census Bureau. 1970 Census of Population Alphabetical Index of Industries and Occupations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.
U.S. Census Bureau. "1970 Occupation and Industry Classification Systems in Terms of Their 1960 Occupation and Industry Elements." Technical Paper 26. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972.
U.S. Census Bureau. 1980 Census of Population Classified Index of Industries and Occupations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980.
U.S. Census Bureau. "The Relationship Between the 1970 and 1980 Industry and Occupation Classification Systems." Technical Paper 59. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989.
U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. Census of Population: 1960. Subject Reports. Occupational Characteristics. Final Report PC (2)-7A. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960.
U.S. Department of Defense. "Occupational Conversion Manual: Enlisted/Officer/ Civilian, Defense Manpower Center." Arlington, VA: DOD 1312.1-M, 1977.
U.S. Department of Labor. "Dictionary of Occupational Titles (Fourth Edition)." Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977.