ARCHIVE :: DECEMBER 2002 :: ECONOMICS

So Much
For Muleteers

Census Data on Job Titles
Show How Our Economy
Has Changed Over Time

By CYNTHIA CROSSEN
Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

Thinking about a career? Consider becoming a gizzard peeler, head chopper or sulky driver.            

These are three of the 31,000 job titles recognized by the 2000 census, a powerful and sometimes comic reminder of the sweep and specialization of America’s labor force. The list includes weight guessers and snake charmers; fountain jerks and soda jerkers; minstrels and freaks.

The U.S. Census Bureau has been compiling lists of its citizens’ jobs since 1850. The 1850 census listed 322 jobs, including muleteer, rag collector and razor-strop maker. But as America’s population grew, moved to cities, became more affluent and invented sophisticated transportation and communication systems, the number of occupations exploded.

Economic Transformation

 The evolution of occupations in the past 150 years shows in picturesque detail the transformation of the American economy from agrarian to industrial to service. There were no baristas in the 19th century, just as there are no rancheros today. In the 1880 census, “teachers and scientific persons” was one occupation. Today there are limnologists, bryologists, mycologists and nematologists; there are teachers of horticulture, floriculture, olericulture and viticulture. All entertainers were lumped together in one category in 1880. Today, there are maestros and impresarios, bareback riders and contortionists. There are five different positions in the bingo industry alone—attendant, checker, clerk, usher and worker. Meanwhile, the title “literary person” no longer exists, nor does livery-stable keeper, umbrella mender or newspaper crier.

The occupation of aviator appeared on the 1910 census as aeronauts, classified as showmen, a group that also included athletes and balloonists. Aviator became a separate occupation in 1920. Airline stewardesses first appeared as a title in 1940 under the classification of nurses—because stewardesses then were required to be medically trained. Psychologist didn’t become a title until 1920, economist not until 1930. Computer programmers appeared in 1960, and political scientists in 1970. The separate occupation of inventor, which first appeared in the 1900 census, was downgraded in 1940 to a title under the larger grouping “professional worker.” The census bureau doesn’t release the number of people listed under individual titles, but combines related occupations under larger categories and eventually releases those totals.

People’s occupations have always revealed more about them than simply how they earn a living. “It’s the single-most important piece of data we have about someone,” says Matthew Sobek, research associate at the Minnesota Population Center, a nonprofit research institute based at the University of Minnesota. “When you know what they do, you know where they are in the social hierarchy, where they might live, their likely income, who they talk to. That’s why when you meet someone, one of the first things you want to know is what kind of work they do.”

Genealogists also study occupations, because so many surnames originated with people’s work: Baxter (baker), Carter (conveyor), Fowler (bird catcher), Jagger (fish hawker), Mason (stonecutter), Pitman (coal miner) and Turner (lathe worker).

Open-Ended

 For the government, occupational data are important for public policy, and for private industry they’re crucial for tracking salaries and other work-force data. But questions about occupations, which are asked only in the long-form version of the survey, are open-ended; respondents can say anything they want, which means new titles will almost certainly appear on the 2010 census.

They are also unverified. If someone says he’s a hash slinger, then hash slinger appears as his title. Indeed, in the 1880 census, one person’s occupation, almost certainly given by a spouse, was “lazy cuss.” Another’s was “gentleman.” In 1900, at least one person listed his (or her) occupation as “capitalist.”

Realizing that census data were unreliable and difficult to use for statistical comparisons, in 1977 the U.S. government created a standard list of occupations. In principle, the Standard Occupational Classification identifies the job of every working person in America and assigns it a six-digit code. The list was revised for the 1980 census, but not again until 1998—an eon in today’s rapidly changing labor market.

The biggest change since 1980 is the increase in professional, technical and service jobs and the decrease in jobs in production and administrative support, such as office-machine workers. The number of jobs in health care surged, particularly home health aides, physical therapists and medical assistants. Among the occupations added to the 1998 code were concierges, massage therapists, environmental engineers, multimedia artists, aerobics instructors, casino workers and preschool teachers.