The Use of ISCO-88 for Measuring Occupational Skill Levels for Workers

Mahir Gümüs

Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences
Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Biga- Canakkale, Turkey
mahir@comu.edu.tr

Abstract

Measurement of occupational skill levels and international comparability is at once one of the best established, most complex, and most disputed area in the social and economic sciences. While some countries use only specific classification standards, International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-88) is now the most widely used international classification standard. The purpose of this study is to inform researchers in the social and economic sciences about statistical applications of the major ISCO-88 scale in order to measure occupational skill levels. Most issues focus on conceptual basis of ISCO-88, collecting and coding occupational information, skill levels classification and some measurement cases associated with skill levels of occupations.