Understanding Society User Support

Hi Roberto,

Thanks. Super helpful. I've now appraised myself more of this, reading your reply and also the revisions set out by Understanding Society (here: https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/user-guides/main-survey-user-guide/revisions-to-the-main-current-job-occupation-jbsocc-in-wave-13/).

I have some more questions, just to be sure I've understood this issue correctly.

For context, I've been using data on workers' SIC 2007, cross-referenced with Labour Force Survey data, to build a matrix of occupational health and safety and introduce this into Understanding Society. It does this by building a profile of workplace accidents and illnesses in comparable years of LFS and then introducing health and safety data based on workers' SIC in the corresponding wave. My data uses Waves 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 of UKHLS but I wanted to update this to Wave 14. In addition, I also now want to build a matrix of workers' job quality by SOC 2020 - I probably only need at least some good data on SOC 2020 to do this.

It seems these issues may make both these things more difficult, but I think I might still be able to find a way through it depending on the severity of the issue - especially whether prior waves' data are affected. Pursuant to this, can I check that:

1. For the most part, this isssue isn't deemed to affect pre-Wave 13 data on jbsic07, jbsoc00 and jbsoc10? My initial worry was that the high rate of change has led the UKHLS team to worry about the accuracy of prior waves' data, but in fact it more seems like the absence of dependent interviewing has created a lot of as you say "artificial" changes in occupations amongst people whose jobs actually remained the same? The analysis linked above appears to suggest as much because once you filter out spurious changes you seem to end up with a rate of job change that's similar to prior waves (~15%).

2. For Waves 13-14, can any jbsoc20 data which are not coded as missing (-9) be relied on as providing a reasonably accurate reflection of that person's current job? I.e. someone coded -9 presumably reported an occupation change which has since been identified as spurious, meaning they don't have an soc20 (and unfortunately it can't be recovered).

3. For sic 2007 in Waves 13-14, amongst those in paid work, it seems there has been a huge jump in inapplicables (-8) for Waves 13-14 - previously I found no inapplicables for those prior waves amongst this sub-group - but -9 is fairly stable. Which suggests the UKHLS team have assigned spurious SICs to -8, is that right? This prompts the same question as #3: can those who aren't coded as 8 be relied on?

4. For SIC 2007, is it possible that some of these Wave 13-14 workers' data from prior waves is recoverable? I.e. in cases where their change in jobs is spurious, I can presumably write some code which carriers forward their prior waves' SIC 2007? I would need to know which of these -9s are genuinely spurious though, which I could presumably find using workers' self-reported job change data.

Any advice on the above would be greatly appreciated!

Best wishes,

Tom

Hi Roberto,

Thanks this is very helpful. I will probably recode the SICs in Wave 14 who have multiple jobs as you suggest, and be transparent r.e. the limitations - missingness is still higher than I'd like for that wave but I can await the November 2025 release and revise accordingly after then. Failing that I might map to SOC instead in LFS (where there's less missingness in USoc so long as you use SOC 2000 and SOC 2010).

On the SOCs - I think a lot of this data might be recoverable for my purposes because the LFS does contain SOC 2010 mapped to SOC 2020 (for Q1 2021-) and SOC 2000 mappped to SOC 2010 (for Q1 2011 - Q1 2021), so for the data I'm using, which uses SOC 2020, I can probably make some assumptions based on what SOC data there is within USoc, likely relying mostly on SOC 2000 as you suggest.

However before I do this, can you clarify why there are respondents in each wave who sometimes report SOC 2000, 2010 and 2020 data at the same time? E.g. in Wave 14 I see there are over 9,000 people in paid work (or away from a paid job) who have jbsoc00_cc and jbsoc10_cc which are >0? Are these the same jobs, o is this carried over data from prior jobs which I should be wary of?

This is probably my final question - sorry for asking so many.

Best wishes,

Tom.

Hello Tom

The different classifications (SOC00, SOC10, SOC20) are provided by the fieldwork agency, which suggests that a mix of approaches may be at play. In some cases, the SOC code may have been carried forward from a previous wave (historical carry-forward), while in others, the respondent’s job may have been reclassified under a different system (parallel classification). At this point, we don’t have the proportions or breakdowns to distinguish these cases precisely.

However, this is something we are actively considering as part of the ongoing redesign and review of the SOC variables. Once we have more information, we will publish further guidance to keep our users informed.

I hope this information is helpful.

Best wishes,
Roberto Cavazos
Understanding Society User Support Team