ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a series of issues relating to the operational and criterion validity of the ESeC classification. The first section discusses the derivation of the ESeC and its roots in the UK’s NS-SEC. The second and third sections deal with the processes involved in adapting a nationally based classification to produce a comparative instrument based on an international harmonized framework of occupational measurement, ISCO-88 (COM). In the fourth section we offer some illustrations of how the schema holds up at different levels of data quality and precision. The final section focuses on three groups within the occupational structure, namely managers, supervisors and skilled workers, which were considered problematic in the construction of the classification and discusses how these problems were investigated and resolved.
