The Effects of Incomplete Information on ESeC

In addition to the full and simplified methods, users may find that they are missing just one piece of information, the most likely being establishment size or supervision. Here are three illustrations of the effects on the measure of ESeC produced.

In a situation where there is three digit ISCO but no information about establishment size, the overall agreement is 99.4%. The only groups affected are the self-employed and employers within the dataset.

In a situation where there is three digit ISCO but no information about supervisory responsibility, the overall agreement is 88%. While most datasets identify large numbers of ‘supervisors’, many of these in groups 1, 2 and 3 of ISCO will remain in the same class by virtue of their status as managers, professionals or associate professionals. The only classes affected are class 2 containing higher supervisors and class 6 containing lower supervisors. The effect is to reduce class 6 to a ‘rump’ with the cases being shared fairly evenly between the bottom three classes.

Table 4:Correspondence Between Full Version and One Without Supervision Information (3 digit ISCO)

In a situation where ISCO is the sole information available, users produce the ‘simplified’ ESeC by allocating cases to a class based on the modal employment status for that occupation. This is in the majority of instances that for employees. A complete list of modal employment statuses for ISCO minor groups is shown at Appendix 9.

The overall agreement between a full 3 digit ESeC and a simplified 3 digit ESeC is 79.7%. The effects of the absence of supervisory information are compounded by the absence of employment status. The main outcome is the redistribution of a large proportion of cases into the appropriate classes for employees performing the same type of work. The detailed correspondences are shown below.

Table 5:Correspondence Between Full and Simplified ESeC (3 digit ISCO)