The Modified International Standard Classification of Occupations defined by the clustering of occupational characteristics in the Korean Working Conditions Survey

Abstract

The modified International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) has been used empirically to report or investigate working conditions or worker status. We used principal component analysis and k-means clustering to analyze the working population based on 67 occupational characteristics among 23,060 workers from the fourth Korean Working Conditions Survey in 2014. The three-cluster approach classified workers into major groups 1–4 (managers, professionals, technicians, and clerical support workers), 5–6 (service, sales, agricultural, forestry, and fishery workers), and 7–9 (crafts, trades, machine operators, assemblers, and elementary occupations) based on the ISCO-08. The results of the current study suggest a well-defined clustered occupational classification that can be used to report or investigate workers.