Standardized occupations
The Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (HISCO) is a standard to make historical occupations comparable across time and space, similar to the contemporary ISCO codes. The HSNDB provides donated occupational titles in a multitude of languages via:
- as CSV files
- as Linked Open Data (RDF) including introductory data stories
For the Netherlands HSNDB has been releasing a standardized list of occupational titles and concomitant HISCO codes since 2013. All titles are standardized into a uniform spelling, and provided with a HISCO code.
These HISCO codes can be converted into social class and social status measures:
- HISCLASS: https://hdl.handle.net/10622/HEFSW2
- HISCAM: https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2012.715569
- OCC1950: https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-zap-qxmc
- SOCPO: https://journalbelgianhistory.be/nl/journal/belgisch-tijdschrift-voor-nieuwste-geschiedenis-2010-1-2/measuring-social-structure-rural
Standardization consists of two rounds. First, regular expressions are used to remove context-specific information from occupational titles, such as ‘Burgemeester van Besoyen’ [Mayor of Besoyen] or ‘Sappeur bij het 3e bataljon van de 13e afdeling nationale infanterie’ [‘Sapper in the 3rd batallion of the 13th regiment of the national infantery’]. The remaining unstandardized occupations are then standardized by hand to deal with spelling variations and previously unencountered occupations.
The database will be updated on a yearly basis.
