A socioeconomic scale for Canada: Measuring occupational status from the census

This paper provides a new occupational scale for the Canadian National Occupational Classification system. The historical context for occupational scales produced by sociologists in Canada and the United States is first discussed. The methodology used in the recent Nam-Powers-Boyd scale in the United States then is applied to the 2001 census of occupations to construct occupational status scores for the occupational titles found in the National Occupational Classification for Statistics (2001) at Statistics Canada. The occupational status scores highlight inequalities existing among groups in Canada along demographic and socioeconomic dimensions. The paper concludes with a discussion of current debates over the use of composite occupational scores.