Occupational composition
The occupational of an individual refers to his trade, profession or type of work, and thus an occupation may be followed in defferent industries. But occupation is often confused with industry, for the distinction is not always clear. The problem of classification is probably even more acute than in the case of industry : the 1951 census of England and Wales distinguished over 40.000 occupations in 27 orders and 61 sub-orders, but for the 1961 census the classification was completely revised, making intercensal comparisons difficult. In many ways. Occupational classification reveals more about the population than a classification according to industry, for the occupation of an individual is probably more important to him than the industry in which he works, but statements of occupation are very prone to errors. The problems in the geographical analysis of occupational data are similar to those in the study of industrial data : the wide range of categories, and the distinction between place of work an place of enumeration. Wilkinson has emphasized the care necessary if occupational tables are to be used in the analysis of location of industry. International comparisons of occupational data are only feasible with a simpler classification, so the U.N. demographic yearbook, 1964 uses ten groups, as in the international standard classification of occupations, with an eleventh group for members of the armed forces : 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Professional, technical and related workers. Managerial, executive and administrative workers. Clerical workers. Sales workers. Farmers, fishermen, hunters, lumbermen and related workers. Workers in mine, quarry and related occupations. Workers in transport and communication. Craftsmen, production process workers and labourers not elsewhere classified. Service, sport and recreation workers. Workers not classifiable by occupation. Members of the armed forces.
Industrial status and social structure
By industrial status we mean the condition of the individual in his occupation. classifications are often simple, and usually the following five categories are adopted : employers, workers on own account, salaried employees, wage earners and unpaid family workers, though in some countries there is an additional category-members of producers co-operatives. International comparability of industrial status is low due to varying categories and connotations. Moreover, because in Great Britain and several other countries there has been little change in industrial status over the years, the subject is often ignored by geographers-though classification of industrial status according to industry, occupation and region gives an illuminating insight into the social structure. it helps to explain some of the social contrasts between a mining village and an agricultural village, between an industrial town and a market town, between a naval port and a fishing port.
social structure brings in a number of factors, like the living standards, classes and social dependence, which are not easily analysed statistically. never-theless, societies can be classified in broad terms according to their social structure, as Derruau has shown in the following categories : a) primitive rural society with a tribal structure, as in Negro Africa. b) rural society with contrasting classes of landlords and peasants, as in Iran or southern Iraq. c) traditional western rural societies with a high proportion of rural non-farm people, exemplified in Western Germany. d) rural societies with numerous agricultural labourers, as found in Languedoc. e) colonial societies with peoples of contrasting traditions, techniques and living standards, found in the northern and southern parts of Africa. f) societies with small rural populations at high living standards, and large number employed in trade and commerce, as in Australia. g) indusrial societies with marked urbanization and marked segregation of classes. h) communist societies with little differentiation in living standards, like Yugoslavia and china. i) communist societies with marked differentiation in living standards, like U.S.S.R. the rates of evolution of theses various societies differ considerably, bringing increasing contrasts in social structure. Socio-Economic Groups in order to understand the relationship between economic factors and demographic treds, there has been analysis of social class and social-economic group. the classification of social class is usually based on the unit groups of the classification of occupations, and in Britain following five are used : 1. professional 2. intermediate 3. skilled 4. partly skilled 5. unskilled with classes II, III, IV being divided into manual, non-manual and agricultural sub-groups. however, this classification is rather crude, arbitrary and unwieldy. a more satisfactory and objective classification is that of socio-economic group which are based on cros-tabulation of data on industry, occupation and industrial status. in the 1961 census of great Britain 16 groups ware derived. 1. employers and managers in central and local government, industry, commerce, etc. large establishments. 2. ditto-small establishments. 3. professional workers-self employed. 4. ditto-employees. 5. intermediate non-manual workers. 6. junior non-manual workers. 7. personal service workers.
8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
foremen and supervisors-manual. skilledmanual workers. semi-skilled manual workers. unskilled manual workers. own account workers ( other than professional) farmer-employers and managers. farmers-own account. agricultural workers. members of armed forces.
hall and smith have combined these groups into there classes and have classified each local authority in England and Wales into one of six categories, depending on the socio-economic class composition of the male population. their map of socio-economic categories for the 1961 census illustrates striking contrasts between different part of the country, especially between nort and south, as well as between town and country and within urban areas.
